!!! Press Release !!!

EU FUNDING SECURED FOR AIXTRON TRICENTâ TOOL FOR
ADVANCED MEMORY APPLICATION

Aachen, November 05th, 2001 - AIXTRON is proud to confirm that the project "Ferroelectric CVD Layers for Memory Applications (FECLAM)", which aims at the development of a production tool for ferroelectric devices on 300mm wafers, will be funded by the EU. Within this project, an existing process module already installed and hooked to a cluster platform will be retrofited for depositions of optimized ferroelectric materials and processes using the HeteroWafer® Technology ready for implementation into memory production lines. The processes under investigation are based on MOCVD providing high uniformity and conformability. Memories based on the ferroelectric effect are expected to substitute the many different memory types used today. This novel device type, the "Universal RAM", combines the ultra-fast read/write times of DRAMs with the non-volatile properties of EEPROMs.

This opens up an extremely diverse market, e.g. for personal computer, cellular phones, chipcards, handheld and mobile device applications. Expected world-wide DRAM market volume is approximately 25 billion US$, and FLASH EEPROM market volume about 8.9 billion US$. Telecom device consumption corresponds to 110 million cellular digital phones including the noise filtering capacitors. Printed circuit board (PCB) architectures will become much more simplified due to the possibility of integrating high capacitors, e.g. for noise filtering packed on top of logic devices. Moreover, the memory manufacturing processes themselves are highly compatible in the silicon technology process flow of logic devices making chip manufacturing much more cost effective.

To enable this technology, advanced deposition equipment for the formation of ferroelectric layers is required. This new project will focus on the production unit for this key step. The Tricentâ MOCVD system is the most advanced 200/300 mm cluster (bridge) tool, suitable for the deposition of ferroelectric materials (e.g. SBT, PZT) and high-k materials for capacitor (BST) and gate (ZrO2, HfO2) dielectrics. For SBT technology AIXTRON has an exclusive license for MOCVD under all SYMETRIX patents. SBT and PZT are the established materials for ferroelectric nonvolatile memories, especially attractive due to their low voltage and high-speed write. BST is the established dielectric capacitor material in future DRAM devices, allowing a significant reduction of cell capacitor size due to its high-k properties. ZrO2 and HfO2 are materials under evaluation for a possible replacement of the current gate dielectric materials.

The consortium consists of the equipment supplier AIXTRON, users from IC industry
(Motorola, AustriaMicroSystems, Infineon) and an R&D institute (Fraunhofer IIS-B, Erlangen, Germany), together experienced in CVD processing and equipped with all necessary tools and infrastructure. They will pioneer the technology by providing a ferroelectric layer deposition tool which is presently not available on the market. Additionally a User Group consisting of potential users of the technology and of the equipment will monitor the progress of the project and provide feedback on technological and economic trends.

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© AIXTRON AG October 2001

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