Sematech and Centrotherm partner to develop low temperature processes for future CMOS and memory devices

Sematech recently announced that centrotherm thermal solutions, a 100 percent subsidiary of centrotherm photovoltaics AG and a developer of process tools and high-tech production systems for the manufacture of semiconductor components, has joined its Front End Processes (FEP) program, and will work with SEMATECH to develop new low temperature processing techniques for future high-performance logic and memory devices. Continued scaling will require new materials and new device concepts that necessitate lower thermal budget process flows. For example, to enable the introduction of high mobility semiconductors as the channel material of transistors, low temperature processes are critical to preserve the beneficial properties of channel materials. Similarly, advanced memory technologies require superior isolation as well as low thermal budget oxidation approaches especially for metal oxide RRAM devices. Plasma-based processing techniques offer an attractive approach to help realize such low-thermal budget processes to enable the integration of new materials into emerging device technologies.