Rudolph Announces SONUS Technology; TEL NEXX Collaboration

Non-contact, non-destructive acoustic technology fulfills growing need in advanced packaging for thick film metrology up to 100μm and void detection down to 0.5μm

Flanders, New Jersey (July 21, 2014)—Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: RTEC) announced today the availability of its new SONUS™ Technology, designed for measuring thick films and film stacks used in copper pillar bumps and for detecting defects, such as voids, in through silicon vias (TSVs). SONUS Technology is a non-contact, non-destructive acoustic metrology and defect detection technique that is designed to be of higher resolution, faster, and less costly than alternative techniques.

Copper pillar bumps and TSVs are key enabling technologies in the rapidly growing field of advanced packaging where 2.5D and 3D assembly schemes are driving the “More than Moore” roadmap. Rudolph has collaborated with TEL NEXX specifically to develop pillar bump and TSV plating process control based on SONUS Technology.

“SONUS Technology meets a critical need for measuring and inspecting the structures used to connect chips to each other and to the outside world,” states Tim Kryman, Rudolph’s director of metrology product management. “Copper pillar bumps and TSVs are critical interconnect technologies enabling 2.5D and 3D packaging. Plating process control for copper pillar bumping is directly related to the mechanical integrity of the interconnect and final device performance. Likewise, the quality of the TSV fill is critical to the electrical performance of stacked devices. Rudolph’s patented SONUS Technology offers the unique ability to measure individual films and film stacks to thicknesses of 100µm and detect voids as small as 0.5µm in TSVs with aspect ratios of 10:1 or greater.”

Arthur Keigler, chief technology officer of TEL NEXX, said, “We’re attracted by the opportunity SONUS Technology offers our mutual customers in the advanced packaging market. The ability to measure multi-metal film stacks for Cu pillar, and then continue to use the same tool for TSV void detection offers immediate productivity and cost benefits to manufacturing and development groups alike.”

Kryman adds, “SONUS Technology builds on the expertise in acoustic metrology developed for our industry-standard MetaPULSE^® systems used for front-end metal film metrology. Offering both improved time-to-profitability and yield improvement during high volume manufacturing (HVM) brings a compelling value proposition to advanced packaging customers. To that end, our relationship with TEL NEXX has been invaluable in bringing this technology to market.”

For more information about Rudolph’s SONUS Technology please visit: www.rudolphtech.com.

About TEL NEXX, Inc
TEL NEXX is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo Electron U.S. Holdings, Inc. TEL NEXX brings exceptional technical expertise to flip chip and advanced packaging capital equipment. The two product lines provide the most efficient, yet affordable, systems of their kind: Stratus for high throughput electrochemical deposition of metals and Apollo for multi—layer physical vapor deposition of metals. Additional information can be found at www.tel.com.

About Rudolph Technologies
Rudolph Technologies, Inc. is a worldwide leader in the design, development, manufacture and support of defect inspection, advanced packaging lithography, process control metrology, and data analysis systems and software used by semiconductor device manufacturers worldwide. Rudolph provides a full-fab solution through its families of proprietary products that provide critical yield-enhancing information, enabling microelectronic device manufacturers to drive down the costs and time to market of their products. The Company’s expanding portfolio of equipment and software solutions is used in both the wafer processing and final manufacturing of ICs, and in adjacent markets such as FPD, LED and Solar. Headquartered in Flanders, New Jersey, Rudolph supports its customers with a worldwide sales and service organization. Additional information can be found on the Company’s website at www.rudolphtech.com.

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