February 7, 2012 – EV Group (hereinafter EVG), a global manufacturer of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology, and semiconductor markets, announced the launch of a new equipment platform called the XT Frame. This newly developed product can increase the process throughput and equipment capabilities of almost all of EVG’s current production product families. In particular, the XT Frame, designed to reflect the new requirements of production manufacturing customers, can accommodate nine process modules—double the capacity of EVG’s existing equipment—thereby significantly improving throughput.
Furthermore, different process modules can be combined on a single equipment platform, allowing customers greater flexibility in product usage. Equipment built with the new XT frame is available for immediate order.

Recently, as the types of devices produced at the wafer level—including components used in mass-produced consumer products such as smartphones and handsets—have increased, the need for new solutions to boost production throughput in fabs has also grown. EVG’s new XT-Frame platform provides an Equipment Front End Module (EFEM) with an ultra-high-speed handling system and up to four Front Opening Unified Pod (FOUP) load ports, as well as sufficient modules to process multiple wafers simultaneously. Combined with a material buffer in the form of a local FOUP storage system (LFSS), this enables highly efficient continuous mode operation. Furthermore, the new design actively incorporates additional customer requirements, such as the ability to utilize various processes via different process modules on the same equipment, easy upgrades, improved usability, and a small footprint that takes up minimal space within the fab.

Paul Linder, Senior Technical Director at EVG, stated, “The XT Frame equipment platform represents a significant step forward in EV Group’s production product family. EVG is committed to developing innovative solutions that push performance limits to address our customers’ most pressing technical challenges while lowering manufacturing costs. Determining the urgent need to enhance production capabilities in the advanced packaging and 3D interconnect sectors, we have applied the XT Frame platform to the EVG®850TB/DB system first.”

The new XT frame architecture supports up to five process modules and further expands EVG’s standard equipment platform, which has proven its performance in the field. This standard equipment platform has also recently been enhanced with improved automation capabilities and improved to achieve higher throughput. For example, EVG’s major new models in the GEMINI FB fusion wafer bonder family, introduced at SEMICON Taiwan in 2011, can be used with options such as EFEM, higher-speed handling systems, and local material buffers.

EVG’s XT Frame platform supports solutions required by all customers, but is particularly useful for advanced packaging and 3D interconnect applications utilizing TSV (through-silicon via). In this field, the new platform further enhances the performance of EVG’s benchmark temporary bonding/debonding and thin-film wafer processing systems. Currently, the XT Frame is available for demonstration on the EVG®850TB/DB, which can also accommodate EZR® (Edge Zone Release) and EZD® (Edge Zone Debond) modules to support EVG’s new ZoneBOND™ technology.