PICOSUN® Sprinter

The PICOSUN® Sprinter ALD system is designed to disrupt batch ALD production in 300 mm manufacturing lines in the semiconductor (e.g. emerging memory, transistor, capacitor), display, and IoT component industries. In Sprinter, barrier, high-k oxide, and other films are deposited with perfect ALD in mass production volumes.

Fully automated, SEMI S2/S8-certified PICOSUN® Sprinter combines the leading single wafer film quality and uniformity with fast processing, high throughput, and uncompromising reliability.

Technical Features

Typical substrate size and type

300 mm wafers in batch for high throughput ALD
Double-side coating possible
High aspect ratio samples

Typical processes

Al₂O₃, SiO₂, TiO₂ and other metal oxides and nitrides

Processing temperature and capacity

Up to 400 °C
More than 100 wafers an hour @ 10 nm Al₂O₃ thickness

PicoOS™ – operating system/process control software key features

Picosun’s own, proprietary, SEMI-compliant scheduler
One common interface to control the whole cluster
Data logged every 20 ms
Trend data can be exported
Access rights for different user levels
EtherCAT-based communication for MFCs and MFMs
Enhanced recovery features
One common event log for the whole cluster
Freely configurable and scalable recipe editor (no fixed number of steps and loops)
Recipes can be edited / created any time during system operation

Precursors

Liquid, solid, gas, ozone
Level sensors available for precursor containers
Continuous dispenser for pyrophoric precursors available as option (delivering up to 4 tools)

The core of PICOSUN® Sprinter is its disruptively designed reaction chamber, where fully laminar precursor flows ensure perfect ALD deposition with no parasitic CVD growth. This minimizes the need for system maintenance.

Compared to vertical furnace reactors typically used for batch ALD processing, Sprinter provides higher film quality with lower thermal budget, so it is suitable also for temperature-sensitive devices.

Sprinter combines very fast process times with smaller batch sizes than in vertical furnaces, which allows greater production flexibility and minimized risk without sacrificing throughput.

The tool has also demonstrated record-breaking batch film quality.

The standard Sprinter cluster configuration consists of two ALD modules, a central wafer-handling robot with pre-heating and cooling chambers, and an EFEM station to load/unload wafers from/to the FOUPs. Sprinter can also be purchased as a standalone module ready to be integrated into an existing manufacturing line or cluster.

PICOSUN® Sprinter is made in Finland with European vacuum robotics and process modules.

The product development work for PICOSUN® Sprinter has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme R3-PowerUP under grant agreement No. ECSEL 737417.