Omron to launch X-ray scanner VT-X950: near real-time inspection of defects in chip manufacturing
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Update time : 2023-11-24 09:41:27
Japanese healthcare equipment and factory automation supplier Omron Corp. is setting its sights on the lucrative chip manufacturing equipment market to drive future growth.
Omron will introduce an X-ray scanner next spring that will better detect defects in advanced semiconductor manufacturing and increase yields for chipmakers worldwide.The VT-X950 device will generate 3D images of chips with enough resolution to identify defects at the 1nm scale, at least a generation ahead of current best-in-class silicon manufacturing technology.
With each scan taking only 30 seconds, chipmakers monitor production in near real-time and make adjustments and corrections more efficiently. For manufacturers such as TSMC and Samsung Electronics, yield (the percentage of defect-free chips produced per wafer) is a closely watched metric - one that affects each company's costs and the speed with which it can fulfill customer orders.
Kazuhisa Shibuya, general manager of Omron Inspection Systems, said, "The trend in demand in the semiconductor industry is to produce a wider variety of chips in smaller batches, but this is not economically feasible without real-time CT scanning."
CT (computed tomography) is the backbone of medical diagnostics and has become an important quality control tool in chip manufacturing. Ninety-year-old Omron, which generates more than half of its 876 billion yen ($5.9 billion) in annual revenue from factory automation products, made its first foray into the semiconductor supply chain in 2012 with the release of the VT-X900, which Kazuhisa Shibuya says is still a small portion of its business, confined largely to a few major chipmakers.
Kazuhisa Shibuya believes demand will grow as chips become more complex and more expensive to manufacture. In an area of just a few square centimeters, manufacturers need to write metal wires thinner than a human hair and deposit thousands of nanoscale solder bumps. New techniques for stacking transistors into three-dimensional structures - such as TSMC and Samsung's (GAA) ring-gate architecture - have increased the precision required.
The need for CT scanning in the semiconductor manufacturing process is urgent," said Akira Minamikawa, analyst at Omdia. As the industry pursues chip shrinkage and Chiplet (small chip) technology, the level of bonding technology required has skyrocketed, especially in the past few years."
The most in-demand chip today is NVIDIA's top artificial intelligence (AI) gas pedal, but TSMC's production capacity for advanced packaging has hit a bottleneck. In this case, quality control and yield improvements have become critical, as the slightest deviation can render a chip that sells for tens of thousands of dollars worthless. X-ray inspection of manufactured chips can help detect defects and allow workers to fine-tune the process as needed.
Sony Group previously said it had trouble mass-producing its latest smartphone camera sensor, which ultimately led to a 15 percent drop in the company's operating profit outlook.
Generally speaking, chipmakers rely on so-called functional tests to determine whether a device works as designed.CT has also been used, but at a much slower pace: sample units are picked up from the production line and X-rayed in a separate room, which can take up to an hour each time. Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Toyo Securities, says demand for faster inspection equipment will increase dramatically. The cost of cutting-edge chip manufacturing will require more real-time monitoring to minimize silicon waste.
Kazuhisa Shibuya says Omron's CT scanners are the only realistic option for chipmakers to install on their assembly lines because no other equipment can generate high-quality CT images in real time. The latest model cuts scanning time in half compared to Omron's previous model.
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