KLA, Inspection System for Automotive Chip Manufacturing Line
Contributing to quality improvement by introducing inline sorting solution


Today, the automotive industry is focused on innovations in electric vehicles (EVs), connectivity, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and autonomous driving. This means more electronics in vehicles, which in turn increases the demand for semiconductors. Since semiconductors are key to vehicle operation and safety, reliability is critical, and automotive semiconductors must meet stringent quality standards.

KLA launched four new products for automotive semiconductor manufacturing on the 24th. The launched products include: △'8935 High-Productivity Patterned Wafer Inspection System', △'C205 Wideband Plasma Patterned Wafer Inspection System', △'Surfscan® SP A2/A3 Unpatterned Wafer Inspection System', and △'I-PAT® Inline Defective Part Average Test Sorting Solution'.

“Automotive semiconductors have no room for failure,” said Ahmad Khan, president of KLA’s Semiconductor Process Control business unit. “Automotive semiconductor manufacturers must find and reduce reliability defects in the factory before the chips are assembled into the vehicle.”

Four new KLA systems provide complementary defect detection, monitoring and control solutions for larger design node semiconductor chip manufacturing in the automotive industry.

The SurfScan SP A2/A3 unpatterned wafer inspector integrates Deep Ultra Violet (DUV) optics and advanced algorithms to provide the sensitivity and speed needed to identify automotive semiconductor reliability defects and keep process equipment operating at peak performance. The C205 patterned wafer inspector uses wideband incident light and NanoPoint™ technology to highly sensitively detect critical defects during R&D and mass production, accelerating the optimization of new processes and devices.

The 8935 patterned wafer inspector detects a variety of critical defects with a low error rate during mass production using new optical technology and DefectWise® AI solutions to quickly and accurately identify abnormalities that can affect the final semiconductor chip quality.

I-PAT is an inline sorting solution that runs on KLA inspection/analysis systems, first collecting data from every wafer at critical process steps on high-speed 8 Series inspectors, including the 8935, or on Puma™ laser scanning inspectors. Custom machine learning algorithms on the SPOT™ production platform and statistical analysis capabilities from the Klarity® defect management system then identify anomalous defect populations and remove defective chips from the supply chain.

Meanwhile, in addition to developing customized new products for automotive semiconductor manufacturing, KLA continues to collaborate with the automotive industry. In addition to joining the Automotive Electronics Council (AEC), it also established a second headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the center of the U.S. automotive industry.