Improvements in semiconductor materials are crucial to improving chip performance

Schubert Chu, head of the epitaxial equipment department of Applied Materials, a major semiconductor equipment manufacturer, said that improvements in semiconductor materials contribute nearly 90% to the improvement of IC performance at each process node, a figure that was only 15% in 2000.

　　Chu said in an interview at the Semicon West exhibition held in the United States recently that in the "mobile era" when smartphones and tablet devices have become the main demand of the electronic industry chain, the focus of semiconductor component design is on improving transistor performance while also reducing component power consumption; in the past "PC era", power consumption was usually not the biggest consideration.

　　Applied Materials recently announced the Centura RP series epitaxy system, a new product developed for NMOS transistor applications. The so-called NMOS transistor is a MOS transistor whose active carriers are electrons flowing through the n-type source and drain regions in the n-channel formed electrostatically on the p-type silicon substrate.

　　According to Gartner's estimates, in 2012, the overall epitaxial equipment market size was approximately US$590 million, growing faster than other front-end equipment for wafer manufacturing, and this trend is expected to continue.

　　Chu said that epitaxial deposition equipment has made great progress in the past decade. Applied Materials was the market leader 10 years ago, with an 80% market share, and epitaxial equipment was mainly sold to wafer suppliers. But today, because the technology can improve the performance of mobile processors, Applied Materials sells more systems, and wafer foundries are the largest customer group.

　　According to Chu, current semiconductor manufacturing processes require several epitaxy steps, and demand will grow as chip suppliers see the technology's potential to improve the performance of their devices. Applied Materials defines epitaxy as the deposition or growth of a single-crystal silicon film that exhibits a lattice structure and is oriented in the same direction as the substrate.

　　Chu pointed out that arranging an NMOS epitaxial process in addition to the PMOS epitaxial process can enable wafer foundries to further improve the performance of next-generation components; this new process has been adopted by several customers.

　　Since the 90nm node, the use of strained selective epifilms with in-situ doping has improved electron mobility and reduced resistance in PMOS transistors, increasing chip speed. Chu said that providing selective epitaxy in NMOS transistors can also achieve similar effects and enhance overall chip performance.