22 December 2020
Nearfield Instruments (NFI) has shipped its first semiconductor metrology system to an undisclosed customer. The high-throughput scanning probe instrument, called the Quadra, demonstrated successful multi-head operation, measuring dense structures with high aspect-ratios on advanced DRAM and Logic device wafers.
The Quadra is capable to handle 5nm logic nodes and beyond. Credit: NFI
Founded in 2016, NFI builds atomic force microscopes (AFMs) that create high-resolution 3D images of wafer surfaces by scanning them with many needles in parallel. The Rotterdam-based TNO spinoff claims a 100-fold throughput advantage over other automated single-probe AFMs targeted for in-line metrology. This high sampling rate helps semiconductor manufacturers determine lot-to-lot, wafer-to-wafer and intra-wafer process variations.
Paul van Gerven
17 December 2020
Imec has presented the smallest silicon FinFET that functions as a biosensor. Fabricated in a CMOS-compatible process, the Leuven research hub envisions volume manufacturing and integration into high-throughput, cost-effective detection tools, with 10,000s of these ‘bioFETs’ working in parallel. With a detection limit of tens of molecules today, Imec ultimately targets highly accurate bioFETs sensing single DNA molecules.
Due to their high integration and low-cost potential, field-effect transistors (FETs) have gained a lot of interest for biosensing applications such as DNA, protein and virus detection or pH sensing. When biomolecules bind to the chemically modified dielectric surface of the gate, its threshold voltage changes, resulting in a measurable signal.
16 December 2020
ASML has completed construction of its 100th EUV scanner and has sent it off to a customer after a small farewell ceremony, the equipment maker announced on social media. After evaluating several options before the turn of the century, the company definitively decided to throw its weight behind EUV as the successor of ArF lithography in 2001. Five years later, the first alpha demo tools were shipped, but it took another decade or so before chip manufacturers had enough faith in the systems from Veldhoven to use them for production. EUV chip manufacturing reached high-volume status in 2019 and in that same year, the first electronic devices with ‘EUV chips’ on-board were launched.
15 December 2020
NXP has told customers that it must raise prices for automotive products due to a “significant increase” in material costs and a “severe shortage” of chips, according to a Reuters report. “To address the unforeseen increase in costs from our suppliers, we reluctantly must raise pricing on all products,” cites Reuters from a letter sent to the chipmaker’s customers. NXP confirmed the authenticity of the letter but declined to comment further.
Credit: Fotowerkt.nl
Volkswagen explained to Reuters that uncertainties due to the pandemic are still affecting the automotive supply chain. Bosch, like NXP a major automotive electronics supplier, is seeing major bottlenecks too. On top of that, the demand for cars in China has soared, as people prefer to avoid using public transportation. Electronics suppliers cannot keep up right now. Car manufacturing outside of China doesn’t seem to be affected, however.