A Dutch company has developed a new carbon technology that can fill tiny gaps in increasingly complex 3D chips by combining two critical production steps into a single process.

Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment maker ASM International launched the XP8 Vertos Flowable Carbon on Tuesday, September 22. It is described as the market’s first plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) flowable carbon film.

ASM International believes the technology could make chip production simpler.
It combines gap filling and planarization, which is the process of creating a flat surface, within a single PECVD system. This could reduce production complexity, costs, and the risk of defects as chipmakers move toward more complicated 3D designs.

“The industry’s ability to continue scaling increasingly complex devices depends as much on materials innovation as it does on architecture and design,” Hichem M’Saad, the company’s CEO, said. The approach has already entered high-volume manufacturing and can be used for both logic and memory devices.

Although chipmakers have used carbon films for more than two decades, M’Saad stated that these materials were not designed to handle the increasingly complex structures found in modern 3D chips.

The reason for this is that they conform to the shape of the features onto which they are deposited. This means uneven surfaces can remain as additional layers are added. Manufacturers then need extra processing steps to correct them.

To overcome this problem, ASM took a different approach with Vertos Flowable Carbon. The material can flow into complex chip features and fill them from the bottom up.

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