NanoPhotonics to Ship 450 mm Wafer Inspection Tools
to ISMI

NanoPhotonics will send two of its 450 mm wafer inspection tools to the ISMI Interoperability Test Bed, where early studies of 450 mm wafers and wafer handling equipment are underway. The tools inspect the surface and edges of 450 mm wafers for cracks, particles and other defects.

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 2/18/2009 7:49:00 AM

NanoPhotonics GmbH (Mainz, Germany) has contracted to ship two inspection tools to the International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI, Austin, Texas) for defect detection of 450 mm wafers.

The darkfield laser surface inspection tool, the Reflex MC 450, detects particles, scratches, area defects and haze on unpatterned 450 mm surfaces. The company’s BevelCam MC 450 uses darkfield as well as brightfield images of the wafer edge, including the bevel, apex, surface regions close to the edge, and notch. The edge inspection tool classifies defects into chipouts, cracks, scratches, area defects, particles and notch contour defects.

Both of the NanoPhotonics tools will be integrated with 450 mm equipment front-end modules (EFEMs) at the 450 mm ISMI Interoperability Test Bed. The NanoPhotonics tools attach to a 450 mm host tool or wafer sorter through a mechanical interface to qualify wafer handling equipment, process equipment and wafer manufacturing, the company said.

NanoPhotonics’ tools could support process development by using the position of a load port (left), or enable total wafer inspection by attaching one Reflex module for surface inspection and one BevelCam module for edge inspection at the rear of a wafer sorter (right).

Last October, the Ricmar Group (Kramsach, Austria) bought a majority stake in NanoPhotonics from ASM International NV (Bilthoven, Netherlands).

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