OTS (February 2008) -- New Edge Contact End Effectors (ECEE) and an Edge Grip Chuck (EGC) substantially reduce backside particulate contamination and improve the throughput of FSI’s ANTARES^® cryokinetic cleaning systems. The ITRS Surface Preparation Roadmap has identified backside particle control as a critical issue for IC manufacturing. Currently, the ITRS is projecting the need for less than 200 backside particles larger than 0.16 microns, decreasing to a particle size of 0.14 microns for future generations.

The particle maps below show the back side particles detected for a standard vacuum chuck, the new EGC and the EGC with the ECEE.

The new components are a result of FSI’s commitment to continuous improvement and represent several man-months of engineering effort. By incorporating new designs and new materials FSI was able to significantly reduce the backside particle signature of the ANTARES^® cryogenic cleaning system. In addition, the ECEE eliminates the need for an alignment step prior to moving the wafer to the process chuck. Testing in the FSI application laboratory indicates an increase of 11 wph, or nearly 15%, in throughput.

These hardware features are available on all new ANTARES^® systems and as an upgrade kit that can be installed on existing systems in the field. If you would like to learn more about this and other improvements, please click here.