BILTHOVEN, The Netherlands, Oct. 30, 2000 (PRIMEZONE) -- ASM INTERNATIONAL N.V. (Nasdaq:ASMI) (AEX:ASM) announced today that its subsidiary, ASM America, in Phoenix, shipped the first Atomic Layer CVD(tm)(ALCVD(tm)) grown, high-k wafers from its Polygon(tm) cluster tool, to International SEMATECH, Austin, Texas. This milestone is part of a co-operation agreement on the development of advanced CMOS transistor gate.
According to Rinn Cleavelin, chief operating officer of International SEMATECH, "New gate stack material development is one of International SEMATECH's key strategic projects that will lead to an urgently needed solution for the scaling of transistor dimensions below the 100nm technology node. A very critical step is the replacement of silicon oxide, which has been used for more than forty years as the gate dielectric material, by a new material with a higher permitivity or "k" value. Atomic Layer Chemical Vapor Deposition, or ALCVD, is a novel technique with the potential to supply thin film materials such as aluminum oxide and zirconium oxide. International SEMATECH is working with ASM America to assess the capabilities of this technique, by supporting the integration and process development of ASM's Pulsar(tm) 2000 ALCVD module on its already existing Polygon cluster tool at ASM America."
Chris Werkhoven, Vice President Strategic Marketing at ASM America adds that: "The International SEMATECH project complements programs defined between ASM and IMEC and its affiliates, as well as between International SEMATECH and IMEC; both programs use a separate but similar Polygon cluster tool at IMEC's facilities in Leuven, Belgium. Overall, we now have a worldwide coordinated effort that will demonstrate the unique capabilities of ALCVD. It is worthwhile to remark", continues Werkhoven, "that several of our customers have found that the excellent step coverage and layer uniformity of ALCVD bring forward the introduction of advanced approaches such as replacement gates and vertical transistors. Moreover, we also use ALCVD to make metallic gate electrode materials. These scaling potentials will make ALCVD a mainstream technology not only for CMOS gate stacks but also for RF and DRAM capacitors as well as interpoly dielectric used in flash memories".
Based in Austin, Texas, International SEMATECH is a non-profit research and development consortium of the following semiconductor manufacturers: AMD, Conexant, Hewlett-Packard, Hyundai, Infineon Technologies, Intel, IBM, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Philips, STMicroelectronics, TSMC, and Texas Instruments. Additional information on International SEMATECH can be found at http://www.SEMATECH.org.
IMEC, the Inter-University Center for Microelectronics, is an internationally recognized, independent research laboratory with about 850 employees located in Leuven, Belgium. IMEC develops and enhances technology and integrated processes for the semiconductor industry.
ASM International is headquartered in Bilthoven, the Netherlands. ASM International's subsidiaries design, develop, manufacture and market equipment and materials used to produce semiconductor devices. ASM International and its subsidiaries provide production solutions for the wafer-processing, assembly and packaging segments through their facilities in the United States, Europe, Japan and Asia. ASM International's common shares trade on NASDAQ National Market under the symbol "ASMI" and on the AEX Stock Exchange under the symbol "ASM". More information on ASM can be found on its website at http://www.asm.com.
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