Leading edge technologies
We were founded in 1968, at the birth of the semiconductor industry. Since then we have helped to shape that industry through a long series of breakthrough innovations that have since become standard throughout semiconductor manufacturing. The scale of our work might be microscopic, but the results are enormous. We start by connecting atoms and end up connecting the world.
GLOBAL R&D
Above all, we’re curious and we often dedicate many years to bringing promising new technologies from R&D all the way through to high volume manufacturing. The key to our success lies in our commitment to engineering research.
We maintain the widest and most diverse ALD development organization in the industry and are active at all stages in its life cycle, from developing the basic chemistry to implementing at our customers’ production sites.
Our research centers in Finland, the US, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and Belgium are working on ALD and we're also conducting joint research projects with Europe's largest independent research institute IMEC. All this is helping to make ALD one of the principal drivers of future growth in microelectronics.
EARLY ENGAGEMENT WITH CUSTOMERS
In addition to our links with research institutes, we also maintain very close ties with our customers. We cooperate closely in joint research and development projects. This begins with sharing our technology roadmap and continues as we bring new technologies and processes into volume manufacturing at our customers’ sites. Along the way, we integrate our R&D teams with our customers’ R&D teams to ensure a smooth transition from research into manufacturing. The process can involve close cooperation over several years for a specific technology.
This approach ensures that our process equipment performs exactly as our customers require it to, in order to meet their precise manufacturing needs.
ALD – THE PLATFORM FOR FUTURE GROWTH
Using ALD, our engineers are now able to deposit new materials several atoms thick on wafers at low temperatures, producing ultra-thin films of exceptional quality and uniformity. ALD is now our basic platform for the development of a wide range of new materials. ASM's ALD technology is now being used to build a wide range of applications such as leading edge products like high performance computers as well as wireless handheld smart devices.
Plasma Enhanced ALD (PEALD) is another in the long line of ASM innovations. It widens the spectrum of materials that can be deposited and its capability to deposit materials at temperatures as low as room temperature makes it possible for engineers to carry out processes on temperature-sensitive substrates like photoresist.
