TOKYO July 8, 2004 Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) announced Thursday that it has started accepting orders for its EXPEDIUS 300mm batch cleaning system.

The semiconductor industry is increasingly introducing mass-production lines for 300mm wafer processes, which enable higher productivity than conventional 200mm lines. TEL developed the EXPEDIUS system to provide the increased productivity in cleaning demanded by these 300mm semiconductor mass-production plants, and the greater flexibility to meet customers' diversified needs.

The EXPEDIUS is the successor to the UW300Z, TEL's flagship cleaning system. It offers an improved transfer mechanism that reduces the time wafers are in front-opening unified pods (FOUPs) and transfer areas, thereby increasing throughput. It also reduces the process time spent in cleaning/drying units. The maximum throughput of the EXPEDIUS is 460 wafers/hour.

The system offers modular and standardized chemical dispensing units in order to enable flexible support for a variety of customer cleaning needs. The EXPEDIUS has also been engineered to enable simple alterations after installation to cope with changes in processes. Furthermore, original TEL technology has been employed in the crucial drying process in order to improve the technique for preventing micro pattern collapse. Mounting the high-performance SD2 watermark-free* drying unit to the EXPEDIUS enables support for a wide range of technology nodes, ranging from 90 nm down to 65 nm.

* Watermarks are spots generated by evaporation of water droplets that fail to dry completely.