CASE STUDIES

Custom Semiconductor Metrology & Inspection Development

Owens Design partners with semiconductor OEMs to design and build fully automated equipment for advanced semiconductor fabs world-wide. We integrate our customers’ proprietary metrology or inspection technology into our semi-custom platform consisting of wafer handling, staging, and environmental controls to create a fully automated system.

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Business Proposition

Developing new metrology or inspection technologies for an advanced semiconductor fab is a very complex endeavor requiring specialized knowledge and significant capital expense. Owens Design reduces the development expense and risk to develop these complex systems by providing a customizable system platform and a complete manufacturing infrastructure for on-going system manufacturing including changes, configuration management, reliability, and cost reduction. We have integrated more metrology and inspection technology systems for leading semiconductor original equipment manufacturers than any other engineering firm worldwide.

Technical Details

Owens Design has developed a customized platform to meet the specific requirements of our customer’s measurement technology. The platform includes wafer handling, staging, contamination and environment control, integration of our customer’s measurement sub-system, and final system test and shipment.

  • Wafer handling system and manage special configurations
    • EFEM, FOUP, SMIF, Wafer ID
    • All substrate types & sizes, thinned wafers, unusual form factors
    • All end effector types, vacuum, edge, flipping, non-contact
  • Develop or integrate third party wafer staging system
    • High precision (sub-micron), air bearing, linear or rotary scanning, vacuum
    • Customized platen design, backside contamination control
  • Environmental control systems
    • Vibration control (passive & active), clean air (ISO Class 1), cleanliness, temperature, light
  • Integrate measurement sub-system
    • Optical, electrical, magnetic, related data acquisition and processing sub-systems
  • System Software, HMI, Calibration, Maintenance Utilities and Field Support Documentation
  • Full system integration, testing, configuration management, and drop shipment to end-user fab
  • Regulatory compliance (Semi, I300I, CE)

Testimonial

“Our collaboration with Owens Design has resulted in an industry-leading tool with excellent performance parameters and a low cost of ownership that make it extremely attractive to our customers.”

Henrik Bækbo, CTO, Capres A/S