World Wide Matching of Registration Metrology Tools of Various Generations

摘要

Turn around time/cycle time is a key success criterion in the semiconductor photomask business. Therefore, global masksuppliers typically allocate work loads based on fab capability and utilization capacity. From a logistical point of view,the manufacturing location of a photomask should be transparent to the customer (mask user). Matching capability of production equipment and especially metrology tools is considered a key enabler to guaranteecross site manufacturing flexibility. Toppan, with manufacturing sites in eight countries worldwide, has an on-goingprogram to match the registration metrology systems of all its production sites. This allows for manufacturing flexibilityand risk mitigation.In cooperation with Vistec Semiconductor Systems, Toppan has recently completed a program tomatch the Vistec LMS IPRO systems at all production sites worldwide. Vistec has developed a new software featurewhich allows for significantly improved matching of LMS IPRO(x) registration metrology tools of various generations. We will report on the results of the global matching campaign of several of the leading Toppan sites.