Applied Materials (AMAT), the world's No. 2 semiconductor equipment company, on the 26th unveiled three new systems for manufacturing advanced logic and memory chips for next-generation artificial intelligence (AI).
Park Gwang-seon, head of AMAT Korea, said at a press briefing in Samseong-dong, Seoul, that "with the spread of AI, required specs are rising rapidly across logic, memory, and packaging," and added, "AMAT has spent the past four to five years preemptively developing the necessary equipment in line with customers' road maps."
Park said, "To strengthen joint research with domestic customers, we are pushing to establish an R&D center in Korea and are in investment talks with Osan," and added, "linked with the 'Epic Center' in Silicon Valley in the United States, which opens in 2026, it will serve as a global development hub."
The "Kinex" system unveiled for the first time that day is equipment integrating a hybrid bonding process in a die-to-wafer method.
Heo Yeong, AMAT's director of hybrid bonding technology, said, "Interconnect density can be more than 10 times higher than with conventional micro-bumps," and explained, "the higher performance an AI chip delivers, the more power efficiency and signal delay become bottlenecks, and hybrid bonding addresses this structurally." He added, "We can cut process changeover (Q-time), which used to take hours, to about one hour, significantly improving customers' development speed," and predicted, "for high bandwidth memory (HBM), full-scale adoption of hybrid bonding will begin from a generation or two from now."
The "Centura Xtera," introduced for processes at 2-nanometer GAA and below, is equipment designed to solve void issues that occur in source/drain epitaxy (epi) processes. Lee Du-seong, AMAT's epitaxy technology manager, said, "For GAA, uniformly filling deep trenches is the biggest challenge," and added, "Xtera reduces chamber volume by 80% and precisely combines pre-clean, etch, and deposition to fundamentally suppress voids." He also said, "It cuts gas usage by 50% compared with existing tools while improving uniformity by 40%."
Provision 10, which addresses metrology demands required in 3D Packaging and backside power delivery processes, was also unveiled that day.
Jang Man-su, AMAT's director of imaging and process control, said, "By applying cold field emission (CFE)-based e-beam metrology, we improved resolution by up to 50% over previous tools and made speed 10 times faster," and added, "it enables through-structure measurements to depths greater than 100 nm without damaging the wafer, allowing early detection of internal defects that occur in GAA, EUV, and HBM processes." He continued, "As chips become more complex in 3D, metrology repeatedly becomes a bottleneck," and said, "we provide an integrated, data-driven diagnostic solution, including image analysis."
Prabu Raja, president of AMAT's semiconductor products group, said, "With the spread of AI, demand for complex packaging and 3D architectures is growing rapidly," and added, "we are jointly developing technology road maps in advanced packaging for logic and memory in collaboration with customers."