High Pressure Annealing Process System
The GENI system is a furnace designed for high pressure annealing (i.e., HPAP) of semiconductor wafers.
The present incarnation of the system is based on 30 years of proven high pressure system innovation gained from previous High Pressure Oxidation (HiPOx) and Vertical High Pressure (VHP) systems experience with various leading semiconductor manufacturers, such as IBM, Motorola, Freescale, National, Fairchild, and Bell Labs.
The GENI system accomplishes what conventional, atmospheric furnaces cannot, and that is to effectively perform annealing processes at reduced temperatures.
This capability is critical for advanced transistor architectures—32nm, 22nm, and beyond—because the lower temperatures result in a significant reduction of total process thermal budgets.
This is essential for realizing the performance goals of next-generation transistors and for preventing damage to the delicate microscopic parts.
The GENI system, the only one of its kind, has been selected as the technology of choice for 32nm technology at the North American IDM.
At the heart of the tool is a double-chamber design, well protected by patents, which enables the process chamber to pressurize up to 25 atmospheres (ATM), allowing diffusion of various high pressure gases. The chamber is made of Type 316 stainless steel and has been tested to 37 ATM. High pressure systems have established an excellent safety record, with no safety occurrences to date through hundreds of completed H2 annealing runs.
The HPAP technology provided by the GENI system enables IC manufacturers to achieve greater electron mobility, reduced interfacial defects, and better transistor tuning abilities. Additionally, the HPAP can be used to help recover mobility degradation caused from other annealing processes, such as flash, spike, and laser annealing.
The GENI system is production-ready, designed for fully automated environments with high throughput processing. The GENI system has the following features and capabilities:
- Adheres to the current ASME, NFPA / UFC, UBC, CE, and SEMI safety standards and is fully compliant with SECS / GEM factory automation requirements
- Capable of processing 200mm and 300mm wafer with 50 wafers batch process (development is in place to increase batch capacity to 75 wafers)
- Various process gas options: H2, N2, O2, D2, O2/H2O, F2
- Temperature range: 300 — 1100°C
- Pressure range: 1 — 25 ATM
- Automated flat finder / wafer scanning
- Single batch with continuous processing in class-1 environment
- 8-FOUP stocker and N2 purge load-lock to control O2 level to below 10ppm
- Independently controlled 4-zone main heater and 2-zone plug heater to deliver the superior thermal uniformity
In addition, the GENI system has a modified equipment front-end module (EFEM) incorporating FOUP stocker capability and an added N2 purge load-lock in the process area to meet more stringent manufacturing requirements for both high throughput and low O2 ppm control.
The first of these new HPAP systems were placed for evaluation at Sematech and a leading North American IDM in 2007. And now, the first production-level product has been placed with that same IDM, along with additional tool installations at a US customer and a Korean customer.
Based in Santa Clara, California, USA, the CA Branch directs its focus toward addressing high pressure annealing and oxidation of advanced semiconductor wafer processes at 32nm and smaller architectures.
