Articles

Flanders, NJ – Rudolph Technologies, Inc., a provider of high-performance process control metrology, defect inspection, and data analysis systems for semiconductor manufacturing, recently announced that it received significant new orders in July and August 2006 for advanced all-surface macro defect inspection tools from a major U.S.-based memory manufacturer.

The proliferation of Rudolph's all-surface macro inspection systems across multiple fabs has resulted from extensive validation work carried out in a production environment. Each inspection tool includes an AXi 930™ platform for frontside inspection, plus E25™ and B20™ systems for edge and backside inspection, respectively. The customer, an integrated device manufacturer (IDM), reportedly will begin installing the tools throughout its manufacturing operations worldwide – and in many of its partnership fabs – in the third and fourth quarters of 2006.

Rudolph's AXi 930 System is believed to be offering industry-leading resolution, while still delivering the high-throughput required for macro inspection applications. In combination with the E25 System and the B20 System, manufacturers have the ability to inspect and correlate defects on all surfaces of all wafers in multiple processes. This inspection capability, believed to be unique among macro inspection equipment providers, allows fabs to ramp more quickly with knowledge about yield-killing defects, and to detect process excursions more quickly after the process has been established.

SOURCE: Rudolph Technologies, Inc.