Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc (AMEC), a dielectric and through-silicon via (TSV) etch tool supplier based in Shanghai, is to launch a multi-reactor metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) cluster tool at the SEMICON China show in Shanghai next week (19-21 March).

The firm says that its Prismo D-Blue MOCVD platform enables high-volume manufacturing of gallium nitride (GaN), indium gallium nitride (InGaN) and aluminium gallium nitride (AlGaN) ultrathin-layered structures required for high-brightness LEDs. With precise parameter control, full automation and a compact design, the new MOCVD tool for LED manufacturing targets high productivity, high yields and low cost-of-ownership. A Prismo tool has already been shipped to a customer’s LED production line in China.

The patented architecture can accommodate up to four reactors. Each reactor can be controlled independently, enabling manufacturing flexibility (claimed to be the only tool of its kind with this capability). The system can hence process in parallel or sequential mode, reducing cross-contamination and ensuring the high crystalline quality required for advanced LED applications, the firm adds. Also, the tool’s footprint efficiency is claimed to be nearly 30% smaller than competing single-reactor systems.

The Prismo platform can process up to 216 2-inch wafers simultaneously. Processing capability will extend to 4-, 6- and 8-inch wafer production, says AMEC. In marathon runs, the tool has demonstrated good repeatability and within-wafer and wafer-to-wafer uniformity with no recipe adjustments throughout the epitaxial process, the firm adds, despite the inherent sensitivity of the process to chamber surface conditions, chemical environments, temperature shifts, and other variables.

In the same marathon runs the system encountered zero process interruptions, the firm adds. Reliability is enabled by in-situ, real-time monitoring of growth process parameters, as well as the software, transfer modules, and process automation and control technologies (as per the field-proven technologies of AMEC’s front-end processing tools).

AMEC also says that the Prismo is optimized for easy maintenance (imperative in fast-moving, cost-conscious LED production). The process performance and uptime extends the interval between services, it is claimed, while novel design features aim to make servicing easier. Also, automated and programmable maintenance routines aim to make reactor open/close operations safer, faster, predictable and less prone to error, the firm adds.