Imec Reports Breakthrough Results on Directed Self-Assembly at SPIE 2015

At the SPIE advanced lithography conference in San Jose, CA, imec presented breakthrough results on Directed Self-Assembly (DSA) process development. Together with semiconductor equipment supplier Tokyo Electron and Merck, a leading chemical and pharmaceutical company that acquired AZ Electronic Materials in May 2014, imec has significantly improved DSA defectivity in the past year, approaching single-digit values.
 
Additionally, the partners have developed a DSA solution for a via patterning process compatible with the 7nm technology node. Furthermore, imec has developed a new chemo-epitaxy flow for 30nm and 45nm pitch hexagonal holes patterning using a single 193nm immersion exposure, envisioning DSA patterning for the storage-node for DRAM applications.
 
“Over the past few years, we have realized a reduction of DSA defectivity by a factor of 10 every six months,” said An Steegen, SVP of process technologies at imec. “Together, with Merck and Tokyo Electron, providing state-of-the-art DSA materials and processing equipment, we are looking ahead at two different promising DSA processes that will further improve defectivity values in the coming months. Our processes show the potential to achieve single-digit defectivity values in the near future without any technical roadblocks lying ahead.”
 
“In today’s consolidating semiconductor landscape, equipment and material suppliers are playing a key role in tackling the scaling challenges and accelerating technology advancements. Our progress on DSA process development is a testament to this, and the result of a deeply concentrated collaboration with Tokyo Electron and Merck, providing the advanced process tooling and materials knowledge paramount to achieve these breakthroughs.” added Steegen.
 
“As an answer to the evolutions in the industry, we are setting up a supplier hub, aiming to offer a neutral, open innovation R&D platform that closely involves suppliers at an early process step and module development stage and allows for efficient cost sharing, minimized risk and optimized return on investment for all in the semiconductor ecosystem,” Steegen concluded. “Following recent announcements concerning imec’s equipment supplier hub, which has already resulted in research acceleration, we are now increasing our efforts to build a material supplier hub, which will be a focus in 2015.”