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Applied Materials Breakthrough Accelerates Chip Performance in the Big Data and AI

Daniel Nenni

Daniel Nenni

Admin
Staff member
Applied Materials Breakthrough Accelerates Chip Performance in the Big Data and AI


  • First metal change to transistor contact and interconnect in 20 years removes major performance bottleneck at the 7nm foundry node and beyond
  • Chip designers can now replace tungsten and copper with cobalt to increase performance by up to 15%
  • Applied’s unique Integrated Materials Solution combines dry clean, PVD, ALD and CVD on the Endura® platform, enabling customers to speed the adoption of cobalt

Applied Materials Breakthrough Accelerates Chip Performance in the Big Data and AI Era | Applied Materials
<location value="LU/us.ca.sanara" idsrc="xmltag.org" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">
SANTA CLARA, Calif.</location>, <chron style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">June 05, 2018</chron> (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Applied Materials, Inc. today announced a breakthrough in materials engineering that accelerates chip performance in the big data and AI era.

In the past, classic Moore’s Law scaling of a small number of easy-to-integrate materials simultaneously improved chip performance, power and area/cost (PPAC). Today, materials such as tungsten and copper are no longer scalable beyond the 10nm foundry node because their electrical performance has reached physical limits for transistor contacts and local interconnects. This has created a major bottleneck in achieving the full performance potential of FinFET transistors. Cobalt removes this bottleneck but also requires a change in process system strategy. As the industry scales structures to extreme dimensions, the materials behave differently and must be systematically engineered at the atomic scale, often under vacuum.

To enable the use of cobalt as a new conducting material in the transistor contact and interconnect, Applied has combined several materials engineering steps – pre-clean, PVD, ALD and CVD – on the Endura® platform. Moreover, Applied has defined an integrated cobalt suite that includes anneal on the Producer® platform, planarization on the Reflexion® LK Prime CMP platform and e-beam inspection on the PROVisionâ„¢platform. Customers can use this proven, Integrated Materials Solution to speed time-to-market and increase chip performance at the 7nm foundry node and beyond.

“Five years ago, Applied anticipated an inflection in the transistor contact and interconnect, and we began developing an alternative materials solution that could take us beyond the 10nm node,� said Dr. Prabu Raja, senior vice president of Applied’s <org style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Semiconductor Products Group</org>. “Applied brought together its experts in chemistry, physics, engineering and data science to explore the broad portfolio of Applied’s technologies and create a breakthrough Integrated Materials Solution for the industry. As we enter the big data and AI era, there will be more of these inflections, and we are excited to be having earlier and deeper collaborations with our customers to accelerate their roadmaps and enable devices we never dreamed possible.�While challenging to integrate, cobalt brings significant benefits to chips and chip making: lower resistance and variability at small dimensions; improved gapfill at very fine dimensions; and improved reliability. Applied’s integrated cobalt suite is now shipping to foundry/logic customers worldwide.

<org value="NASDAQ-NMS:AMAT" idsrc="xmltag.org" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Applied Materials, Inc.</org> (Nasdaq:AMAT) is the leader in materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world. Our expertise in modifying materials at atomic levels and on an industrial scale enables customers to transform possibilities into reality. At <org value="NASDAQ-NMS:AMAT" idsrc="xmltag.org" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Applied Materials</org>, our innovations make possible the technology shaping the future. Learn more at www.appliedmaterials.com.

Ricky Gradwohl (editorial/media) 408.235.4676
Michael Sullivan (financial community) 408.986.7977


<org value="NASDAQ-NMS:AMAT" idsrc="xmltag.org" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">Applied Materials, Inc.</org>

June 05, 2018
 
How come?
TSMC 7nm node uses good old materials, and is in production this year.
IMEC and IBM are saying this week at IITC that copper will prevail down to 3nm node.
And AMAT is saying copper cannot scale below 10nm node?

The only fab that announced cobalt in their process is having difficulties and pushing 10nm production to next year.

This AMAT story seems to be inconsistent...

And a clam that cobalt (or any other new material) is good for Big Data and AI is... ridiculous.
These buzz words are overused these days.
 
Maxim said:
How come?
TSMC 7nm node uses good old materials, and is in production this year.
IMEC and IBM are saying this week at IITC that copper will prevail down to 3nm node.
And AMAT is saying copper cannot scale below 10nm node?

The only fab that announced cobalt in their process is having difficulties and pushing 10nm production to next year.

This AMAT story seems to be inconsistent...

And a clam that cobalt (or any other new material) is good for Big Data and AI is... ridiculous.
These buzz words are overused these days.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. The customer name that came to mind is Intel (data center) and how many problems they are having with 10nm. AMAT is just propping up one of their biggest customers here.... very disappointing.
 
When such PR comes from university or lab researchers - "oh, we created a device based on carbon nanotubes, or graphene, or other fancy materials, that will displace silicon that is running out of steam" - everyone knows what's the significance and weight to these statements. People need to impress granting agencies to justify their grants.

But when similar statements are coming from a reputable commercial company, producing manufacturing tools for the industry, it's a different thing - it raises a suspicion that other statements from the same company may not be as reliably as we used to think...

A huge amount of noise and lies makes it hard for the real companies and real technologies to find their way to success.
 
If you read the IBM recent talk about copper they do not claim it is used for the finest interconnects. IMEC has published about the scaling problem, and ruthenium is another metal being considered for fine wires. The scaling problem with copper is that you need damascene barriers and when you are counting the nanometers, those significantly reduce the amount of copper. I have not seen the graphs on cobalt but with ruthenium the point is that it is just an adequate conductor however it does not need damascenes and it is resitant to electromigration, so at some scale it works better than copper. With 14 levels or more of metal, these materials will only be appearing at the bottom of the stack.

I also wonder if TSMC is already using what AMAT is now allowed to announce.
 
Ruthenium, OMG they must be getting desperate. Never heard of it. What is next? So you think TSM is using AMAT for cobalt at 7nm or just INTC?
 
Cobalt is important for 10nm and below, no doubt. Intel seems to have made the biggest cobalt commitment and are having the biggest issues. Cobalt is galvanically corroded by copper, it brings reliability and resistance risks. It is also in short supply. Cobalt is necessary for the new batteries in the new Teslas and EVs worldwide. All of a sudden, a previously boring element is suddenly quite strategic in different high tech fields.

Samsung SDI, like all Lithium battery makers, is using a huge amount of cobalt. It would be interesting to see if Samsung begins to position themselves in the new cobalt economy in their memory and foundry divisions as well.
 
Daniel and Maxim are quite right; there's more to this PR than meets the eye at a quick glance. Some relevant info is available here.
 
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