Applied Materials and Magma Integrate CAD and Inspection Systems

By DE Editors

Applied Materials, Inc. and Magma Design Automation, Inc. have integrated Magma’s CAD-based navigation and yield analysis software with Applied’s inspection systems. The companies say this combination of design and manufacturing tools has accelerated lithography qualification and improved chip yields at multiple customers for the development and production of advanced technology nodes.

As device features shrink, achieving acceptable yields becomes increasingly challenging. Complex interactions between process conditions and design produces “hot spots” — areas where the printed pattern deviates from the design intent — which must be eliminated before a chip can go into production. Integrating design and real-time inspection data provides customers with a way to identify hot spots in a production environment and improve their product qualification process. In addition, the conditions that produce hot spots can be fed back to the design process — helping to improve subsequent designs.

For more information, visit Magma and Applied Materials.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.