EV Group (EVG), a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced that it has received an order for its EVG®120 automated resist processing system from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT). An existing customer of EVG’s wafer bonding and alignment systems, VTT is among the first to place an order for the newest version of the EVG120 system, which has been enhanced to provide even greater reliability, throughput and process performance compared to the previous-generation platform. VTT will use the new EVG120 system to increase capacity for supporting parallel R&D projects involving new and different coating materials, as well as to enable new research applications in “More than Moore” technology areas such as MEMS, optoelectronics, photonics and compound semiconductors.
“Lithography plays a vital role in the production process for devices that power our digital society,” stated Heini Saloniemi, manager, process engineering, at VTT. “After a thorough product evaluation of lithography coating systems, VTT selected the EVG120 in a competitive tender, with coating uniformity and repeatability of coating thickness among the key evaluation criteria. We look forward to receiving the new EVG120 system, which will enhance our lithography process capabilities and allow us to explore new avenues of research.”
The EVG120 automated resist processing system provides reliable and high-quality coating and developing processes in a universal platform. Its versatility and flexibility, as well as its low cost of ownership, makes it an ideal system for research environments where many development projects may be running in parallel, while its high throughput rates enable its use in volume production.
The updated EVG120 platform maintains all industry-leading capabilities of the previous-generation platform, including compact design for minimal footprint; customizable module configurations for spin and spray coating, developing, bake and chill; EVG’s CoverSpin™ technology, which provides optimized coating uniformity of odd-shaped and square substrates; EVG’s proprietary OmniSpray® technology for conformal coating of extreme topographies; and wafer-edge handling.
New features on the updated platform include:
- Separation of wet processing modules to enable constant conditions chamber to chamber
- Integrated chemistry cabinet for resist pumps and bottles (including support for high-viscosity resists), for improved process control and short dispense cycles
- New robot handling system that provides the highest reliability and increased throughput
- Optional humidity and temperature control for constant environmental conditions
“As the leading research institute in Finland, VTT has a strong global network of industry partners throughout the world to transform breakthrough research into new products and services in renewable energy, healthcare, smart industry and smart city, as well as beyond. EVG is working tirelessly to support our key customers such as VTT in these endeavors,” stated Thomas Wagenleitner, product management director at EV Group. “As part of that effort, we have leveraged more than 20 years of experience in resist processing to drive continuous improvements to our industry benchmark EVG120 platform. This allows us to enable even greater levels of coating performance for our customers at a lower cost of ownership, which is critical for both production fabs and research labs at the cutting edge of technology like VTT.”
More information about the EVG120 automated resist processing system can be found at: https://www.evgroup.com/en/products/lithography/photolithography/coaters_developers/evg120/.
