Material Qualification for Yield Improvement and Cost Saving in Advanced FEOL and Packaging Processes
While new materials, device structures, and packaging technologies drive the latest advancements in next-generation semiconductors, ramping and maintaining yield is becoming more challenging. As reported by several fab excursion cases, the absence or inadequate material qualification could lead to millions of dollars in production wafer losses. The material contamination source could be the material itself, material handling steps from suppliers to process tools, or process equipment themselves, making material qualification a more complicated problem. However, material qualification through the ecosystem shall consider cost versus sampling tradeoffs. Optimum wafer inspection methods for random versus systematic defectivity in combination with in-situ chemical analysis can ensure faster yield improvements at adequate capital and operating cost structure. Through years of collaboration with IC fabs, process equipment manufacturers, and material suppliers, we have developed several solutions and BKMs at reduced capital and operating costs, and the presentation covers use cases for many materials and process steps in both FOEL and advanced packaging.
BIOGRAPHY
Jijen Vazhaeparambil serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the SFS inspection, ADE metrology, and ECI chemical analysis divisions of KLA.
Jijen joined KLA in 1998 as a software engineer and has since held several engineering and leadership positions. Before KLA, he worked in Orbotech for two years, which is now part of KLA.
Jijen earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Kerala University, India, a master's degree in guidance and control from the Institute of Armament Technology, India, and another master's degree in engineering management from Santa Clara University.
Jijen holds multiple patents in the areas of inspection and metrology.