How equipment manufacturers can achieve differentiation from Shengmei’s three new products

On March 13, at 10:30 Beijing time, Wang Hui turned on his computer and entered the Tencent conference room on time.

At this time, he was on the other side of the ocean, it was late at night, but he was still sitting at his desk, accepting media interviews on the three new products launched by ACM Semiconductor.

As the CEO and Chairman of ACM Semiconductor, he has been involved in countless interviews, and he is used to it. Today, we will hear from this veteran how ACM Semiconductor grew from scratch, and what surprises it has brought to the semiconductor equipment industry.

Wang Hui, CEO and Chairman of ACM Semiconductor

Gathering momentum

In 1998, Wang Hui and a group of Tsinghua alumni founded ACMR in Silicon Valley, USA, which mainly engaged in the research and development of semiconductor-specific equipment; in 2005, ACMR invested in the establishment of ACM Limited, the predecessor of ACM Semiconductor, in Shanghai, and invested the right to use the semiconductor-specific equipment-related technologies developed by its early research and development into ACM Limited.

Based on the previous technology, ACM continued to carry out technical research and development and technological innovation of special equipment. After nearly 10 years of research and development, it successfully developed SAPS technology in 2008. The following year, SAPS cleaning equipment successfully entered Korea Hynix for product verification.

In 2011, ACM received its first cleaning equipment order from Hynix, which was SAPS cleaning equipment for 12-inch 45nm process; and in 2013, it received multiple repeat orders.

It took ACM two years from product verification to official order receipt. During this process, there were both sadness and joy. Every time a problem arose, it was necessary to trace the source again. Fortunately, these problems were all solved and finally recognized by customers.

The two-year testing process also laid a valuable foundation for its future development. Wang Hui admitted that this was a milestone in the development of ACM Semiconductor and played a great role in reference for its subsequent products to enter the market.

"It is very difficult to make any equipment. When the equipment entered Hynix, we worked on it for 12 or 15 months but still did not see any orders. We were very depressed." Wang Hui said that if small equipment companies want to enter the supply chain of the world's first-tier major customers, they must differentiate themselves and provide solutions to problems that others have not yet solved, such as improving yield and increasing economic benefits. Only in this way can they have a chance to enter the market.

Jiwei.com learned that through continuous testing, research and development, and optimization, ACM Semiconductor's SAPS cleaning equipment helped Hynix improve the yield of two processes by 1.5%. If the yield of a 100,000 square meter production line can be improved by 1.5%, it can create a profit of about US$70 million a year (equivalent to about RMB 456 million at the exchange rate on March 14).

It is precisely because of the recognition from Hynix that ACM has begun to attract market attention. After 2015, the semiconductor industry in mainland China entered a period of rapid development, and the demand for semiconductor-specific equipment grew rapidly. With its performance and reputation in the international industry, ACM successfully obtained SAPS cleaning equipment orders from customers such as Yangtze Memory Technologies (XMC), SMIC and Huahong Group after 2015.

In the same year, its TEBO technology was successfully developed and successfully installed in Huahong Group in 2017; in 2018, its Tahoe technology was successfully developed, enriching its technology and product lines in the field of semiconductor cleaning equipment.

In addition to cleaning equipment, ACM Semiconductor currently also has front-end copper interconnect electroplating equipment and vertical furnace tube series equipment for chip manufacturing, back-end advanced packaging electroplating equipment, as well as wet etching equipment, coating equipment, developing equipment, degumming equipment, stress-free polishing equipment, etc. for advanced packaging.

From single cleaning equipment to wet equipment and then to dry equipment, ACM Semiconductor is continuously expanding its product matrix while moving towards becoming an "international company with multiple equipment products."

Innovation

The market development map has been planned. After formulating a detailed technology research and development path, ACM is also gradually launching its technological achievements to the market.

Recently, ACM Semiconductor launched three equipment/technologies, one of which is the 300mm single-wafer sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide mixed acid process (single-wafer SPM) equipment used in wet cleaning and etching processes in semiconductor manufacturing. This high-temperature single-wafer SPM cleaning equipment complements ACM's Tahoe SPM single-wafer/tank integrated equipment, providing customers with a comprehensive sulfuric acid cleaning and sulfuric acid saving solution.

The second is high-speed copper electroplating technology, which can be applied to Shengmei's electroplating equipment ECP ap, supporting copper, nickel (Ni) and tin-silver (SnAg) electroplating of interconnect copper bumps, redistribution layers and tin-silver plating, as well as warped wafers, copper, nickel, tin-silver and gold plating of high-density fan-out (HDFO) advanced packaging products.

"This new high-speed copper plating technology enables the copper plating chamber to achieve stronger mass transfer during the electroplating process." Wang Hui said that one of the main challenges of 3D electroplating applications is the need to maintain a high plating rate and better uniformity when electroplating metal films in deep through holes or grooves with a depth of more than 200 microns.

Traditionally, copper electroplating of bumps at high plating rates has encountered mass transfer limitations, resulting in reduced deposition rates and a non-uniform bump top profile.

The high-speed electroplating technology of ACM Semiconductor Equipment can enhance the mass transfer of copper group cations when depositing copper coatings and cover all bumps on the entire wafer with the same electroplating rate. This can achieve better uniformity across the entire wafer and within each chip (die) during high-speed electroplating.

Wang Hui introduced that the wafers processed by this technology have significantly improved the effect compared with other methods at the same electroplating rate, and can achieve wafer-level uniformity of less than 3%, while also ensuring better morphological performance and higher production capacity.

Currently, ACM has received the first order for equipment equipped with high-speed electroplating technology, which will be sent to China's advanced packaging and testing factory in late March for installation and verification.

Third, it has added undoped polysilicon deposition, doped polysilicon deposition, gate oxide deposition, high-temperature oxidation and high-temperature annealing semiconductor manufacturing processes to its 300mm Ultra Fn vertical furnace dry process equipment product series.

Previously, ACM Semiconductor has released vertical furnace systems for oxide, silicon nitride (SiN) low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) and vacuum alloy annealing processes. Based on this configurable vertical furnace platform, ACM Semiconductor has added the above applications and is currently able to perform more than 75% of batch thermal processes.

The high complexity and small geometric dimensions of today's device designs place higher demands on the uniformity and stability of temperature control in thermal processes, which is critical to wafer yield. To meet these requirements, the Ultra Fn heater is equipped with a unique control algorithm that provides stable temperature control performance.

Furthermore, ACM has expanded the functionality of its flexibly configurable Ultra Fn equipment, making it suitable for new process applications by only changing some modules and layouts; and components can be easily replaced to achieve different customized process requirements.

Wang Hui introduced that this configurable system design is not only compatible with most of the hardware of Shengmei's existing oxide and nitride deposition systems, but also greatly reduces the total cost.

At present, the first SiN LPCVD has been delivered to a logic manufacturing customer in early 2020, and has been verified in large-scale mass production at the factory; at the same time, another micro-torque-level ultra-high vacuum function alloy annealing process vertical furnace equipment has also been delivered to a power device manufacturing customer at the end of 2020, and the production capacity verification has been completed.

"The new features released this time will soon be tested on the client side, and verification results are expected to be obtained within 2021." Wang Hui added, "After the new process technology is launched to the market, we will basically have full success in vertical furnace equipment, which also marks that Shengmei has officially entered the field of dry process equipment from wet process equipment."

summary

From obscurity to emerging prominence, ACM Semiconductor's achievements today were not achieved overnight. They have taken one step at a time, focusing on innovation, research and development, and application. They are based on cleaning equipment and take a differentiated product route, striving to be the "only one" in the industry rather than a follower.

It can be said that today's achievements are neither accidental nor unexpected. We look forward to more surprises from ACM Semiconductor in the process of market competition.