SEMATECH announced today that Araca Inc., a leading provider of products and services for chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) research and development, and the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI) are partnering to deliver CMP processing and productivity solutions that will help chip manufacturers increase yields, reduce equipment downtime and lower consumables costs.

“Leading-edge device designs and materials are introducing more complexity into planarization processing for manufacturers. This is increasing wafer costs and impacting die yields,” said Dr. Ara Philipossian, president and founder of Araca, Inc. "Partnering with ISMI allows us to validate our CMP Slurry Injector System (SIS-x) and other innovations in high-volume manufacturing facilities across the industry. This technical collaboration with the industry’s leading device manufacturers is vital to our success as we develop and commercialize high-performing and cost-effective CMP solutions.”

As a part of ISMI’s Manufacturing Technology program, Araca and ISMI will evaluate Araca’s CMP SIS-x system on varying consumable set-ups on select types of CMP equipment at ISMI members’ manufacturing locations to help increase removal rates while reducing polishing defects and slurry consumption for CMP processes.

“Cost and productivity are major obstacles in CMP, in addition to eliminating process variables that arise from equipment generated variation. While this applies equally to new and legacy processes, this is especially true for sub-20 nm high-volume manufacturing,” said Boyd Finlay, ISMI project manager. “We welcome Araca to our team and look forward to collaborating with them on current and future factory productivity challenges.”

ISMI is working cooperatively with the semiconductor industry to provide solutions to common high-volume productivity and cost detractors. ISMI’s Manufacturing Technology Program leads various equipment productivity improvement projects including CVD/PVD/etch particle elimination, CVD pump failures and chamber dusting prevention, electrostatic chuck cost-of -ownership, equipment variation and control, and defect source and root cause analysis.

ISMI also provides industry leadership through the ESH Technology Center, focusing on sustainability and green initiatives, addressing regulatory issues, and resource conservation in manufacturing operations.

ISMI membership is open to all semiconductor manufacturers and suppliers. ISMI and its members collaborate with a broad network of companies, consortia, universities, national laboratories, and associations from around the world to tackle manufacturing and ESH technology challenges.

About Araca

Araca, Inc. is a leading provider of unique, enabling and fully customized solutions to clients in the integrated circuit planarization and semiconductor polishing fields worldwide. Headquartered in Tucson (AZ) with offices in Mesa (AZ) and Mie (Japan), Araca, Inc. provides services in pad surface preparation and grooving, analytical and functional testing of consumables, 450 mm process physics and simulation as well as process and consumables co-development. In addition to the Slurry Injection System, Araca, Inc. manufactures state-of-the-art 200 and 300-mm R&D polishers capable of real-time measurement, analysis, correlation and reporting of shear force and down force. Visit www.aracainc.com for more information.

About SEMATECH

For over 25 years, SEMATECH®, the international consortium of leading semiconductor device, equipment, and materials manufacturers, has set global direction, enabled flexible collaboration, and bridged strategic R&D to manufacturing. Through our unwavering commitment to foster collaboration across the nanoelectronics industry, we help our members and partners address critical industry transitions, drive technical consensus, pull research into the industry mainstream, improve manufacturing productivity, and reduce risk and time to market. Information about SEMATECH can be found at www.sematech.org.

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