3D InCites Award for FRT MicroProf® - FRT GmbH is voted as "Equipment Supplier of the Year".

The company with headquar-ters in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, was honored with this title by 3D InCites on March 7th. 3D InCites was asking to vote among 40 nominees from 26 companies and 4 research institutes competing in 9 cat-egories for this award. The competition was fierce. Over 40,619 online votes, more than twice the number of last year’s event were logged.

The MicroProf®, third genera-tion of surface metrology tools from FRT, combines multi-sensor technology and hybrid metrology in one measuring system. The MicroProf® uses op-tical multi-sensor technology to measures the topography and the total thickness or the film thickness of samples without contact. The MicroProf® is the ultimative solution for surface metrology and can perform a wide range of measurement tasks quickly, efficiently and intuitively.

Table of ConTenTEquipmEnt SuppliEr of thE YEar 1

aa Xt now EvEn morE fEaturES 2

nEw "laYEr modE" for fiEld of viEw SEnSorS 2

hYBrid mEtroloGY furthEr EXpandEd 2

ovErlaY mEaSurEmEnt 3

diSCo CondoX prozESS 3

frtent / mEtroloGY tuESdaY 4

BrEakinG nEwS 4

EvEntS 4

Dear business parTners,You have real challenges on your product surfaces? There is nothing to worry about - we will take care of it. The horizon of measurement tasks is growing every day and so are our experts relentlessly deve-loping and qualifying new solu-tions for our customers' metrology tasks. We analyse your require-ments in the most diverse fields of application and expand and improve our products and services accordingly. With our multi-sensor concept and hybrid metrology, we can also perfectly meet high cus-tomer demands. In order to sa-tisfy all production requirements, the automation of our systems is adapted to the most diverse tar-get industries. For example with the possibility to measure overlay, which is especially important in the semiconductor industry for the production of 3D ICs (see below). Again we could show our soluti-on competence. Furthermore, a lot has happened in our compa-ny since the relaunch. We have expanded our production facility in Bergisch Gladbach along with our international sales and service network. These and other exciting new things can be found in the current headline. We wish you a lot of fun in reading and a success-ful business year!Kind regards,

Thomas Fries

Current information for our customers and partners / spring 2018 edition

HEADLINEequipmenT supplier of The Year

FRT of America Manager Paul Flynn proudly receives the "Equipment Supplier of the Year" award from 3D InCites

MicroProf® 300 at DISCO HI-TEC EUROPE GmbH, Munich

aCquire auTomaTion XT – now even more feaTures

New "Layer Mode" for fieLd of View SeNSorS

Transparent layers impose challenges in the daily business of topography measurement. In order to get the desired result, one has to make sure that the topography data is taken from the "right" surface.

The new "Layer Mode", available for the CFM, CFM DT and WLI FL sensors is a giant leap forward in this difficult subject and provides the perfect so-lution for many different applications. The special software feature is able to distinguish between the reflections coming from the different surfaces. By the use of a graphic interface, the user is given the possibility to sort and filter the signals from the multiple surfaces and define the output of the relevant data. These settings can also be adjusted for previously measured data, i.e. a re-measure-ment is not required.

The "Layer Mode" can be used, e.g. to measure the topography of a poorly reflective transparent

layer, while ignoring the signal from the highly reflective substrate underneath.

As a further benefit, for materials with a known refractive index, the sensor can also be used to directly determine the thickness of a transparent layer.

Hybrid MetroLogy

Semiconductor, MST/MEMS/Nano, Sapphire/LED and for many others – the demand for 3D surface measuring devices is enormous and is constantly growing due to new technologies and applications.

The components and measuring applications are becoming more and more complex, so that certain measuring tasks often cannot be solved by one sensor alone, as the desired parame-ters are not directly accessible. Multiple sensor configurations can help to measure all relevant sample properties that requires a solution of the task. Depending on the task, this may include measurements with different topography and (film) thickness sensors and also different analysis of the single results. To get to the desired output value, the individual results need to be combined in order to get the desired final result. This ap-proach is referred to as 'Hybrid Metrology'.

Acquire Automation XT allows to combine out-come from different measurements/evaluations in a subsequent hybrid analysis where the previ-ously measured individual values are used to cal-culate new result parameters. The hybrid analysis tool is designed to be very flexible. Besides basic calculation functions like subtraction or multi-plication it even allows for complex arithmetic operations. Setup of the hybrid analysis is easily done in dedicated dialog where all input values and the output value(s) with its specific calculati-on formula(s) are defined. Once set up, the hyb-rid analysis can be applied in a fully automated measuring process.

acquire autoMatioN Xt Package for oVerLay MeaSureMeNt

Nowadays 3D IC production consists of a se-quence of steps, where, for instance, a new ma-terial layer is often placed on the existing struc-ture. In this way, transistors, contacts, etc. are built up both laterally and vertically. Any kind of misalignment can cause short circuits and con-nection failures. In order for the final device to function correctly, these separate patterns must be aligned with the highest accuracy.

A new software package for Acquire Automati-on XT offers fully automated measurement and analysis of the overlay offset in x- and y-direc-tion as well as the rotation of microstructures. The function can be used on high resolution camera images as well as FRT's field of view sensors like the CFM (DT).

This software feature combined with FRT's po-werful sensor range efficiently helps manufac-turers of modern 3D IC components to improve processes and increase production yield.

DISCO HI-TEC EUROPE GmbH, the European market leader in processing of semiconductors, is a long-standing customer we greatly appreciate. This close relation ship led to a real cooperation last year. Not only is a demo tool on site, but also an application engineer of FRT is permanently in Kirchheim near Munich.

Especially structured, non-planar wafer surfaces, e.g. bumps, with a different structure height profile are a problem for the grinding and dicing process of the wafer. To prevent edge chipping and adhesive residues from tapes DISCO HI-TEC EUROPE GmbH developed the CONDOx process. This process can significantly improve the grinding and dicing results of highly struc-tured wafers and FRT helps in the development of this process.

DISCO has been using FRT tools for process control for more than ten years and DISCO relies on the speed and precision of our automated measuring tools for the newly developed CONDOx process. In order to receive the desired results, the CONDOx process relies on TTV (Total Thickness Variation) measurements of the entire wafer stack and film thickness measure-ments of silicon or glass wafers by FRT. Thanks to the detailed measurement results, the process can be further refined and adapted for future tasks.

We are very pleased about the intensive cooperation with DISCO HI-TEC EUROPE GmbH and are glad to help in the development of this process. We look for-ward to the future with great pleasure and hope to be able to further expand this successful cooperation.

Post processing layer mode dialog for field of view sensors

Metrology Capability Banner Overlay

Our efforts towards constant improvement of in-house operating software of our systems also lead to regular upgrades and new possibilities for our automation software Acquire Automation XT. This not only concerns the individual evaluation packages, but also the basic package. We would like to intro-duce some new features here:

CooperaTion wiTh DisCo hi-TeC europe Gmbh - frT helps To realize The ConDoX proCess

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> Research project TRACE - the successful cooperation of FRT GmbH, Chemnitzer Werkstoffmechanik and Fraunhofer ENAS within the TRACE consortium is being continued. With the completion of the integration of the microDAC TL sensor into the FRT measurement software, our MicroProf TL is ready for the market. The tool enables the measurement of vertical and lateral deformation of components under thermal load.

breakinG news

further information and dates at www.frtmetrology.com

Cs manTeCh, austin, usa 07.05. – 10.05.2018

semieXpo russia, moscow, rus 29.05. – 30.05.2018

semiCon west, san francisco, usa 10.07. – 12.07.2018

Taipei int'l mold & Die industry fair, Taipei, Twn 29.08 – 01.09.2018

semiCon Taiwan, Taipei, Twn 05.09. – 07.09.2018

TestXpo, ulm, De 15.10. – 18.10.2018

iwlpC, san Jose, usa 23.10. – 25.10.2018

semiCon europa, munich, De 13.11. – 16.11.2018

semiCon Japan, Tokyo, Jpn 12.12. – 14.12.2018

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frT network:

frT distributors: https://frtmetrology.com/en/contact-support/

Germany frT Gmbh

+49 2204 84-2430+49 2204 84-2431info@frt-gmbh.com

questions? Contact us!

Asia / PacificfrT shanghai Co., ltd.

+86 21 3876 0907+86 21 3876 0917info@frt-china.cn

americafrT of america, llC (west)

+1 408 261 2632+1 408 261 1173info@frtofamerica.com

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Follow us @FRTmetrology on Twitter!http://www.twitter.com/FRTmetrology

Follow us @integratedmetrology on YouTube!http://www.youtube.com/user/integratedmetrology

Follow us @FRT GmbH on LinkedIn!https://de.linkedin.com/company/frt-gmbh

Follow our Blog @ FRTent!https://www.frtent.com

FRTent is the name of our FRT Content Hub (www.frt-ent.com). Here you will find a lot of infor-mation about FRT under one roof. We would like to share our knowledge and passion for optical metrology with you, so that you can also understand and use our enthusiasm for metrology. We are of course aware that not every reader is an expert in our field, but what is not that can still be. Through actual news and press releases you will regularly receive infor-

mation about our industry and have the chance to get the best information possible.

do you aLready kNow our MetroLogy tueSday?

Every Tuesday afternoon is Met-rology Tuesday on our LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. Here, we use pictograms and measure-ment graphics to explain a par-ticular measurement challenge that was solved using FRT tools. The clear examples help illus-

trate how FRT products work. Feel free to comment on these tweets and ask questions. Fol-low us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/FRTmetrology) or LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/frt-gmbh). The interesting articles on different types of metrology are explained in detail in our FRTent. In this way, we also pro-vide non-specialists the chance to read their way into the world of metrology and to be always up to date.

frTent – everYThinG unDer one roof

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