Silex’s fully equipped, state-of-the-art 6-inch (150 mm) class 10-10000 wafer manufacturing facility is ISO 9001:2000 certified and includes:

  • DRIE
  • Furnace
  • Dry and Wet Etch
  • Plasma
  • Lithography
  • Wafer Bond
  • Dicing
  • SEM
  • Electrical Testing

6” Wafer Fab Capabilities

Substrates
  • 6” wafers of silicon, SOI, fused silica and glass
  • Extensive experience in handling thin wafers and fragile structures
Lithography
  • Contact 1:1
    Minimum features: ~0.8 µm (vacuum contact mode) or ~3 µm (proximity mode) Alignment accuracy: ~1 µm (front side align), or ~2 µm (back side align)
  • Stepper 5:1
    Minimum features: ~0.5 µm Alignment accuracy: ~0.1 µm
  • Photoresist coater
  • Contact/proximity mode aligner
  • Double-side lithography capabilities
  • Resist thickness: 1-10 µm using positive and negative photoresist(thick films over 20um also possible)
  • BCB
  • Lift-off
  • Spray coating for pattering in recesses
Plasma Etching
  • DRIE with high selectivity and 1:50 feature aspect ratio
  • Dielectrics (oxide, nitride, etc.)
  • Polysilicon
  • Metals (Al, AlSiCu, TiW)
  • Oxide ICP
Plasma Deposition
  • PECVD oxide (LF/HF)
  • PECVD nitride (LF/HF)
Wafer Bonding
  • Silicon fusion bonding
  • Au-Si, Au-Sn eutectic bonding
  • Anodic bonding
  • Thermocompression bonding
  • Glass-glass bonding
  • Adhesive bonding
  • Alignment accuracy for wafer pairs < 5 µm
  • Alignment accuracy for multi-wafer stacks < 5 µm
  • All bonding can be done in controlled ambient conditions or vacuum
  • Megasonic or Brush wafer cleaner
Furnace Processes
  • Wet/Dry/Mixed thermal oxidations (900 – 1050C)
  • Annealing processes (densification, bond or forming gas)
  • Vacuum anneal
  • Metal sintering
  • RTP
  • Doping processes (ion implantation, POCl3)
  • Low-stress LPCVD nitride (ultra low stress available)
  • LPCVD oxides (LTO, PSG, TEOS)
  • LPCVD polysilicon (amorphous, poly, fine-grain poly)
  • Anti-reflective coatings
Wet Etching
  • Anisotropic silicon etching (KOH, TMAH)
  • Wet etching of dielectrics (i.e. different oxides and nitrides)
  • Wet cleaning process; acid- and solvent based
  • Wet etching of metals
  • Vapour HF
Metallization
  • Sputter deposition (Al, Al(SiCu), Au, Cr, Cu, Ni, Ti, TiW)
  • Electroplating (Au, Sn)
  • Electroless plating (Au, Ni)
  • Evaporation (Au, Cr, Ni, Pt, Si, Sn, Ti)
Metrology
  • SEM with CD-tool
  • Ellipsometer
  • Interferometer
  • Inspection microscopes
  • CD microscope
  • White light interferometer
  • Surface profiler
  • Film stress measurement
  • Sheet resistance (four-point probe)
  • Surfscan
  • XRD
Testing
  • Automated probing
  • Test development for prototyping and volume production of MEMS devices and system integration
  • Automated electrical parametric testing
  • Customer specific test rigs
Back End
  • Automated dicing of wafers and wafer stacks
  • Au and Al wire bonding
  • Epoxy and solder die attachment
  • Access to high-volume surface-mount assembly
  • Lapping for wafer thinning/polishing