New Ultra Track Leverages ACM’s Extensive Coater and Developer Expertise; ArF Model Expected to Ship in the Fourth Quarter of 2022
FREMONT, Calif., Nov. 17, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — ACM Research, Inc. (ACM) (NASDAQ: ACMR), a leading supplier of wafer processing solutions for semiconductor and advanced wafer-level packaging (WLP) applications, today, through its operating subsidiary ACM Research (Shanghai), Inc., introduced its Ultra Track tool, marking its entry into the track market. ACM’s participation in this new product category is a natural evolution of its expertise in cleaning, coating and developing systems. The Company completed R&D for its first standalone coater tool and developer tool for packaging in 2013 and delivered them in 2014. ACM expects to ship the first Ultra Track Coater/Developer ArF tool to a domestic Chinese customer in a few weeks, and an i-line model in 2023, and also has begun development of a KrF model.
“I am pleased to announce ACM’s entry into the track market, a major new product category for our company. According to Gartner, the global track market is expected to reach $3.7 billion USD in 2022, making it a significant new opportunity for ACM,” said David Wang, founder and CEO of ACM. “ACM’s core competencies in software and robotics, combined with our proven coater and developer tool performance and proprietary new architecture, position us to enter the track market with a competitive product offering. This marks our initial entry to support the front-end lithography process of today and the future. We see good demand potential and we believe many global logic and memory manufacturers are seeking a second track supplier source.”
ACM’s Ultra Track is a 300mm process tool that delivers uniform air downflow, fast robot handling and customizable software to address specific customer requirements. The tool has multiple features that enhance performance across defectivity, throughput, and cost of ownership. The Ultra Track will support the full range of lithography applications, including i-line, KrF and ArF process.
Coater/developer track tools support the photolithography process, ensuring ideal conditions for the entire process and optimizing the coating and developing steps before and after the wafer is exposed in a lithography tool. Designed to support 300mm wafers, the Ultra Track features four 12-inch load ports, 8 coating chambers and 8 developing chambers. Chamber temperature is maintained at 23°C ±0.1°C with a bake range of 50 to 250°C. The tool achieves wafer breakage of <1 per 50,000 wafers. The proprietary new architecture design also supports 12 coating chambers and 12 developing chambers for throughput of 300 wafers per hour, which is expected to increase to 400 wph in the future with more coating chamber and developing chambers.
