한국의 반도체 전공정 장비업체인 HPSP와 아이멕(imec)은 고압어닐링공정(HPA) 및 고압산화공정(HPO)에 대한 연구개발을 강화하는 공동연구개발 프로젝트(Joint Development Project) 협약을 지난 10일 벨기에 루벤 아이멕 본사에서 체결했다고 15일 밝혔다.
▲From left, Luc van den Hove, CEO and President of Imec, and Kim Yong-woon, CEO of HPSP (Photo: Provided by HPSP)
In-depth research on advanced semiconductor devices and applications
HPSP and imec, Korean semiconductor front-end process equipment companies, announced on the 15th that they signed a joint development project agreement to strengthen research and development on the high-pressure annealing process (HPA) and high-pressure oxidation process (HPO) at imec's headquarters in Leuven, Belgium on the 10th.
HPSP plans to strengthen research and development on high pressure annealing and high pressure oxidation processes.
Separately, through the opening of a new R&D center in Korea, HPSP plans to develop new process technologies that can expand HPA and HPO technologies to processes other than existing ones. It has also been reported that research on HPA and HPO using other gases will be conducted in earnest based on the high-pressure hydrogen annealing process, which is being adopted as an essential process in the advanced process.
HPSP's high-pressure hydrogen annealing equipment, the only one supplied worldwide, is a device that removes defects at the interface of semiconductor devices, thereby improving the performance and reliability of transistors.
As semiconductor technology advances and becomes more highly integrated, more powerful, and faster, low leakage current is required at the gate. Due to the characteristics of these semiconductor devices, much research and development is being conducted to ensure stability at the interface. As such, the market demand for improving device interface problems continues to expand.
In addition, existing high-temperature annealing equipment is limited to use in advanced processes of 10 nm or less. Accordingly, HPSP is proud that high-pressure hydrogen annealing equipment can be applied to advanced processes of 2 nanometers or less because it performs annealing using high pressure and high concentration of hydrogen at relatively low process temperatures.
To promote the development of new high-pressure process equipment, HPSP signed a joint research and development project agreement with Imec. The joint research and development agreement ceremony was held on January 10 at Imec’s headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, and was attended by key executives and related personnel from HPSP and Imec. Kim Yong-woon, CEO of HPSP, said, “We expect that HPSP’s high-pressure process equipment will be able to be expanded to next-generation semiconductor manufacturing processes through Imec’s cutting-edge research program.”
Meanwhile, HPSP has been conducting research with iMEC since 2015 to apply the high-pressure annealing process to various devices and verify its effectiveness. High-pressure annealing has been successfully applied in the semiconductor manufacturing processes of imec’s key partners and has been proven to significantly contribute to improving the performance of various semiconductor devices, including FinFETs, GAA, high-performance DRAMs, and 3D NAND.
HPSP is conducting preliminary research on the impact of HPA and HPO on advanced semiconductor devices such as CFET and 3D memory devices, and plans to actively cooperate with customers and iMac to expand business opportunities to apply HPA and HPO to next-generation semiconductor manufacturing processes.
