SMC are pleased to announce the addition of the Frontier Semiconductor Inc FSM 500TC film stress measurement system to their existing tool set

The tool enables SMC to offer rapid and accurate measurement of film stress, wafer bow and thermal parameters for 75mm to 200mm wafers.

The non-contact measurement is obtained using an auto switching dual laser system, enabling a wide range of materials to be characterised including oxides, nitrides, metals, low and high k coatings.  The laser wavelength used and intensity being automatically switched dependant on the reflectivity of the material to be characterised.

Stress in the range 1MPa to 20GPa can be evaluated at temperatures ranging from ambient to 500º centigrade, with a programmable ramp rate of between 1º and 20 º per minute.  Using varying temperatures and repeat runs the tool may be used to simulate process parameters or to evaluate the thermal stability of deposited films.

Possible outputs include stress/bow v temperature/time/position in either raw data, 3D wafer map or cartesian format, all readily exported to Excel software. Additionally, parameters such as coefficient of Thermal Expansion are also provided as a standard feature.