Focused Ion Nano beam (FIB) advances

ALIS CORP, A tiny nanotech startup in Massachusetts, is developing a Helium based Focused Ion Beam system, critical for advanced photomask repair and improvements in defect inspection in the 90nm and better wafer fab plants.

ALIS has begun commercialisation of a Helium gas based Gas Field Ionisation Source (GFIS FIB) where the more commonplace Gallium FIB is presently used for in line wafer fabrication analysis and for photomask repair. But conventional Gallium based LIMS (liquid metal ion source) FIBS nano machining tools suffer from leaving trace Gallium residue on the silicon device wafers and on the Photomask glass after the Gallium FIB repair.

ALIS' Helium ion beam system is no laughing matter, it permits repair of expensive photmasks for 90nm and smaller features to be performed without generating trace optical absorption that otherwise occurs from Gallium staining, where by contrast ALIS is gallium stain free. The elimination of gallium staining in repair of $200k Deep UV phase shifted photomasks is critical to be able to have a viable DUV photomask repair process. Helium GFIS FIBS are a godsend to the photomask suppliers for 90nm and 65nm process technology.

Additionally, Scanned Beam Helium Ion Imaging has some advantageous properties useful for defect identification in the wafer process - the Helium beam catches tiny particles more easily than the typical SEM Scanning Electron beam Microscope.

Just this past week Zeiss SMT - semiconductor division - thought ALIS' technology to be so innovative and useful that it bought the company. The upset is that FEI Corporation presently has a huge business in Gallium based FIBs in the wafer fabs, circuit revision/repair in design phase and in the Photomask manufacturing labs where FIBs are used to repair chrome and glass pattern defects by nanoscale etching and deposition.

What happens next to FEI? No telling if they might slowly shrink in the FIB business core to their present revenue base if Zeiss quickly ramps the manufacture of the ALIS Heluim Ion Microscope. µ

Read more about the ALIS technology at my nanotech blog - Wendman's Views on Nanotech here