Dutch semiconductor equipment vendor Nearfield Instruments B.V. has launched a new feature for its atomic force microscopy (AFM) metrology systems for microelectronics.
Called Lightning Mode, the new feature for its Quadra AFM system allows the tool to be fully qualified and deployed for high-volume manufacturing.
Quadra is an in-line scanning probe metrology system with multi-miniaturized AFM head architecture for on-device, non-destructive 3D metrology. The system is designed to accelerate time-to-yield and high-volume manufacturing yield optimization and control in memory and logic processes.
Nearfield Instruments said Lightning Mode allows the Quadra metrology system to boost productivity more than 160-fold for image acquisition. It also allows for non-destructive determination of lot-to-lot, wafer-to-wafer and intra-wafer process variations in full 3D with very high wafer and lot coverage.
“Hybrid bonding is a critical technology to support the future demands for computational power, which is driving more chip stacking and increased data transmission; more efficient energy consumption in multi-chip systems is a key,” said Hamed Sadeghian, CEO of Nearfield Instruments. “Hybrid bonding plays a crucial role in artificial intelligence chip systems, both in 3D packaging and new-generation high-bandwidth memory manufacturing. However, it comes with additional complexity to 3D packaging and chiplets, increasing the importance of angstrom-level, non-destructive metrology with the capability of not only die-to-die, but also pad-to-pad metrology, which has historically demonstrated limited throughput over the more conventional techniques like AFM.”
