Full Description

KLA-Tencor Corporation (KLA-Tencor), incorporated in 1975, is a supplier of process control and yield-management solutions for the semiconductor and related nanoelectronics industries. Its products are also used in a number of other industries, including light emitting diode (LED) and data storage manufacturing, data storage, solar process development and control, and general materials research. The Company’s portfolio of products, services and software are designed to help integrated circuit (IC) manufacturers manage yield throughout the entire fabrication process, from research and development to final volume production. In September 2008, KLA-Tencor completed its acquisition of the Microelectronic Inspection Equipment business unit (MIE business unit) of Vistec Semiconductor Systems. The MIE business unit is a provider of mask registration measurement tools, scanning electron microscopy (SEM)-based tools for mask critical dimension measurement and macro defect inspection systems. Other MIE technologies include macro defect-inspection systems, optical review tools and overlay-measurement systems for micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) applications.

KLA-Tencor’s products and services are used by majority of wafer, IC, disk and reticle manufacturers worldwide. KLA-Tencor operates primarily in design, manufacture and marketing of process control and yield management systems for the semiconductor and related nanoelectronics industry. It design, markets, manufactures and sells its equipment consisting of patterned and unpatterned wafer inspection, defect review and classification; reticle defect inspection; packaging and interconnect inspection; critical-dimension (CD) metrology; pattern overlay metrology; film thickness, surface topography and composition measurement; measurement of in-chamber process conditions, wafer shape and stress metrology; computational lithography tools, and overall yield and fab-wide data management and analysis. The Company also offers products that serve the LED, data storage, solar and other industries. KLA-Tencor’s offerings can be categorized into various groups: chip manufacturing, wafer manufacturing, reticle manufacturing, data storage media/head manufacturing, solar manufacturing, high brightness LED manufacturing, compound semiconductor manufacturing, MEMS manufacturing and general purpose/lab applications.

Chip Manufacturing

KLA-Tencor’s portfolio of defect inspection, review, metrology, in-situ process monitoring and lithography modeling tools help chip manufacturers manage yield throughout the entire fabrication process, from research and development to final volume production. These products and solutions are designed to help fabs accelerate their development and production ramp cycles, to achieve semiconductor die yields. The Company’s front-end defect inspection tools cover a range of yield applications within the IC manufacturing environment, including incoming wafer qualification, reticle qualification, research and development, and tool, process and line monitoring. Patterned and unpatterned wafer inspectors find particles, pattern defects and electrical issues on the front surface, back surface and edge of the wafer, allowing engineers to detect and monitor critical yield excursions. Fabs rely on its high sensitivity reticle inspection systems to identify defects in reticles at an early stage, to prevent reticle defects from printing on production wafers.

During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009 (fiscal 2009), the Company launched five front-end defect inspection products that help accelerate yield for 45 nanometer and 32 nanometer design node devices. The 2820 Series systems are brightfield patterned wafer inspectors, deep ultraviolet (DUV)/ultraviolet (UV)/visible illumination, optical modes, and data rate to capture a range of defect types in the lithography cell and other process modules throughout the fab. The XP upgrade option provides a means to extend the performance of the 2810 Series and 2820 Series brightfield inspectors by integrating design-aware inspection capability and recipe acceleration features. The eS35 electron-beam inspection system is its 10-generation, e-beam inspector, enabling the identification of yield, reliability and performance issues by providing the capture and classification of buried electrical and small physical defects. The Surfscan SP2 unpatterned wafer surface inspection system delivers throughput for process tool monitoring throughout the fab and an operating mode to accelerate development of devices. Improvements in the Klarity Defect automated defect analysis module and data management system enable the analysis of edge inspection defect data, the analysis of large sets of defect data, and identification of defect excursions.

The Company offers 2367, 2810 Series and 2820 Series systems for broadband brightfield optical defect inspection; Puma 9100 Series systems for laser-based darkfield optical defect inspection, and eS32 and eS35 systems for e-beam defect inspection. In the field of unpatterned wafer and surface inspection, its primary offering is its Surfscan SP Series (a series of wafer defect inspection systems for process tool qualification and monitoring using blanket films and bare wafers), to which its SURFmonitor module may be added to enable capture of low-contrast defects. For reticle inspection, the Company offers its TeraFab products, which are photomask inspection systems that allow IC fabs to qualify incoming reticles and inspect production reticles for contaminants. KLA-Tencor also offers a number of other products for the front-end defect inspection market.

KLA-Tencor, through its ICOS division, offers a series of standalone inspection systems for various applications in the field of semiconductor packaging (that is at the back-end of the semiconductor manufacturing process). Its Component Inspector (CI) products inspect various semiconductor components that are handled in a tray, such as microprocessors or memory chips. Component inspection capability includes three-dimensional (3D) coplanarity inspection, measurement of the evenness of the contacts, and two-dimensional (2D) surface inspection. Its Wafer Inspector (WI) products inspect either undiced wafers, or diced wafers mounted on film frame carriers. They inspect the surface quality of the wafers, the quality of the wafer cutting, or wafer bumps.

The Company’s defect review systems capture high resolution images of the defects detected by inspection tools. Its line of defect review and classification tools spans optical and electron-beam technologies, from bench-top research systems to production-worthy tools having factory automation. KLA-Tencor’s suite of defect inspectors, defect review and classification tools and data management systems form a solution for finding, identifying and tracking yield-critical defects and process issues.

In May 2009, the Company collaborated with Tokyo Electron Limited to jointly introduce AcuShape , a modeling and library-generation package to meet optical critical dimension metrology requirements for the 32 nanometer node and below. This new software package enables metrology engineers in IC fabs to measure the dimensions of 3D logic and memory structures, such as FinFETs, bulb RCATs, and structures created by advanced patterning techniques, such as spacer pitch splitting and double-patterning lithography.

The Company’s SensArray SensorWafers series provides a way to capture the effect of the process environment on production wafers. Measurements, such as temperature and radio frequency (RF) voltage, are used by both chipmakers and process equipment manufacturers to visualize, diagnose and control their processes and process tools. During fiscal 2009, KLA-Tencor launched two new in-situ process monitoring tools. The PlasmaVolt X2, for measurement of plasma chamber conditions, offers a number of embedded sensors and spatial resolution and is highly sensitive to changes in various parameters, such as RF power, gas flows, magnetic fields and chamber design. The EtchTemp SensorWafer captures the effect of the process environment on production wafers and offers capabilities to robustly characterize the high-power, high-frequency etch recipes proliferating at 65 nanometers nodes and below.

The Company’s PROLITH product line provides rigorous tools to enable researchers to model the local interactions of light with the mask, patterning materials and processes, to predict the outcome of the pattern on the wafer. During fiscal 2009, the Company launched both PROLITH 11 and PROLITH 12, which enable modeling of double-patterning lithography, a method for constructing the small features of advanced devices by dividing the pattern into two interleaved patterns, and Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithography systems, respectively.

Wafer Manufacturing

KLA-Tencor’s wafer manufacturing tools include inspection, metrology and data management systems. Specialized inspection tools assess surface quality and detect, count and bin defects during the wafer manufacturing process and as a critical part of outgoing inspection. Wafer geometry tools ensure the wafer is extremely flat and uniform in thickness, with precisely controlled surface topography. Specifications for wafer defectivity, geometry and surface quality are tightening as the dimensions of transistors become so small that the properties of the substrate can substantially affect transistor performance. Key products in the wafer manufacturing field include its Surfscan SP series systems, which offer defect and surface quality inspection for polished wafers, epi wafers and engineered substrates, as well as SURFmonitor, an optional module for Surfscan SP2 and Surfscan SP2 systems that performs both surface and defect inspection (by monitoring process drift and capturing low-contrast defects), as well as wafer geometry and nanotopography metrology (by indicating sub-Angstrom surface topography variation on bare substrates).

Reticle Manufacturing

The company offers high-sensitivity reticle inspection and metrology systems for mask shops. The reticle inspection systems use optical imaging and multiple inspection modes to find numerous types of reticle defects prior to printing on the wafer. In September 2008, KLA-Tencor launched the die-to-database version of Wafer Plane Inspection (WPI), its mask inspection technology that allows logic and foundry mask makers to concurrently detect defects on the mask and assess whether the defects are likely to print on the wafer. This was followed in April 2009, with the launch of the TeraScan, a reticle inspection system that utilizes high-resolution reticle-, aerial- and wafer-plane inspection capability. These new reticle manufacturing products extend the performance of its existing reticle inspection portfolio, which includes its photomask defect inspection systems TeraScan (for mask shop production of advanced-node reticles) and TeraStar (for larger design-rule devices). Other products that it offers for the reticle manufacturing market include LMS IPRO4 for pattern placement metrology and LWM9045 for CD metrology.

Data Storage Media/Head Manufacturing

The Company’s process control and yield management solutions are designed to enable customers to understand and resolve complex manufacturing problems. In the front-end and back-end of thin-film head wafer manufacturing, the Company offers the same process control equipment, with which it serves the semiconductor industry. In addition, KLA-Tencor offers a range of test equipment and surface profilers with particular strength in photolithography and magnetics control. In substrate and media manufacturing, it offers metrology and defect inspection solutions with KLA-Tencor’s optical surface analyzers and magneto-optical mappers.

Solar Manufacturing

In July 2008, the Company launched the P-6 system, which provides stylus profiling and analysis of surface topography, for issues such as roughness, film stress and curvature, in an economical benchtop design for samples up to 150 millimeter. This was followed in March 2009, with the launch of the ICOS PVI-6 inspection module, designed for inspection of both the front surface and back surface of monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar wafers and cells, as well as the optical classification of solar cells at the final stage of the production flow.

High Brightness Light Emitting Diode Manufacturing

High brightness LED’s (HB-LED) are used for high-end applications. Its ICOS wafer inspector offers outgoing automated visual inspection of HB-LED wafers for quality of the wafer surface. Candela Optical Surface Analyzer technology is being used by in the LED manufacturing industry to monitor production lines, identify mission critical defects of interest, and create process-specific recipes to detect and classify killer defects while ignoring nuisance defects.

Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing

KLA-Tencor’s Candela inspection tool combines the elemental principles of scatterometry, ellipsometry, reflectometry and topographical analysis to detect and classify defects in substrates, epi-layers and process films. Candela technology is being used in LED, single-crystalline thin film, silicon carbide and semiconductor industries to monitor production lines, identify mission critical defects of interest, and create process-specific recipes to detect and classify killer defects while ignoring nuisance defects.

Micro-Electromechanical Systems Manufacturing

MEMS revolutionize the product category by bringing together silicon-based microelectronics with micromachining technology, making possible the realization of complete systems-on-a-chip. KLA-Tencor offers the tools and techniques developed for the integrated circuit industry.

General Purpose/Lab Applications

A range of industries, including general scientific and materials research, optoelectronics and data storage, require measurements of surface topography to either control their processes or research new material characteristics. Typical measurement parameters that the Company’s tools address include flatness, roughness, curvature, peak-to-valley, asperity, waviness, texture, volume, sphericity, slope, density, stress, bearing ratio and distance (mainly in the micron to nanometer range).

K-T Certified is the Company’s asset management program that delivers fully refurbished and tested tools to its customers with guaranteed performance. In addition to pre-owned 300 millimeter and more than 200 millimeter tools for the integrated circuit, reticle, substrate, MEMS and data storage markets, K-T Certified also offers system software and hardware performance upgrades. Through K-T Services, the Company delivers yield management capability from advanced technology nodes and collaborates with customers to determine the products and services to meet technology requirements.

The Company competes with Applied Materials, Inc. and Hitachi Electronics Engineering Co., Ltd.