Product category: Electronics Manufacturing Machinery and Materials
News Release from: Applied Microengineering | Subject: RAD system
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 31 October 2006
Radical shift in wafer activation
AML's customers can finally activate, align and bond in-situ, in one chamber
After waiting patiently AML's customers can finally activate, align and bond in-situ, in one chamber, but not only that, they will have the new AML 'radical' activation technology which provides benefits over the existing crude plasma activation used by competitors. The RAD system was pre-ordered by QinetiQ in the UK which will be the first company in the world to have the new system.
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Other customers have been waiting for it to be available before purchasing a wafer-bonding machine.
This follows the sale of AML's first 8in machine, which was recently commissioned at IME in Singapore, and a high profile sale to ISSY is the USA, a leading MEMS manufacturer.
The AML pipeline also contains many new developments including a new hot embossing tool for the fabrication of polymer micro/nano structures for micro fluidic devices and biosensors and the launch of the new Bondcentre which provides wafer bonding process development and services to support the machines.
The ability to bond wafers together at lower and lower temperatures has been a prime requirement for many in the MEMS, IC, III-V and optical industries.
It simply gives more design freedom and possibilities.
Further reading
Wafer bonder improves MEMS gyro
The throughput and performance of wafer bonding tools can play a key role in determining the cost of assembly and packaging of MEMS and other microsystems devices
Time to rethink MEMS device manufacture
The design-house/foundry model for the fabrication of MEMS devices that his company has been pursuing for a number of years simply does not work, says AML's Rob Santilli
Wafer bonders buck the trend
On the MEMS equipment supply side AML is experiencing a boom period with sales of wafer bonding machines all over the world - USA, Far East, Taiwan, India, and Europe
The introduction of the only in-situ, single machine process that can activate, align and bond in one chamber will make introducing such techniques much more feasible.
AML has now introduced this into its acclaimed range of aligner-wafer bonders.
The use of radicals to activate a surface to enable low temperature bonding offers many advantages over the use of plasmas.
For example, plasma roughens the surface and this can actually making bonding more difficult; and because of this the plasma process has a very small process window.
Radicals are less damaging to any existing structures that may be present on the wafers, and also offer a more stable, reliable, better bond and bond strength than plasma activation.
Because the process is carried out in one chamber, it also offers advantages in terms of yield.
Technical Director Tony Rogers and Nick Aitken of AML are presenting a paper describing this at the prestigious Electrochemical Society conference in Cancun, Mexico at the end of October.
Rob Santilli says: 'This is just a reflection of what AML stands for'.
'We come from a process background rather than just being an engineering or 'metal bashing' operation that look to their customers to develop their machines'.
'We put a huge effort into R and D and I think this pays off in the machines we produce and the processes we can offer'.
He went on to say: 'If anyone now buys a competitor's machine, then they are doing their organisations a disservice and their purchasing departments could be seen as being negligent, the AML machines are that far ahead'.
Santilli added: 'We used to compete on price because our simple, elegant design and ability to provide two machines (aligner and bonder) for the price of one enabled us to do this'.
'However we now focus on just providing the very best machine on the market in terms of performance (including industry best throughput and best vacuum encapsulation) and value for money (lowest cost per bond) - so we may no longer be the cheapest, which was especially difficult when the opposition were having to practically give their machines away to compete with us'.
'If you haven't got an AML bonder you're not serious about bonding'.
Wafer bonding is a technique that originally had limited applications when it was first used in MEMS.
But now the use of the technique has exploded into many new areas, such as mainstream IC, III-V and optical devices and applications.
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