Applied Materials’ New Vistara™ Wafer Manufacturing Platform Helps Customers Tackle Chipmaking Challenges
11 Julho 2023 - 8:30AM
Applied Materials, Inc. today introduced Vistara™, Applied’s most
significant wafer manufacturing platform innovation in more than a
decade, designed to provide chipmakers with the flexibility,
intelligence and sustainability needed to tackle growing chipmaking
challenges.
The Vistara platform builds upon the company’s long history of
leadership in semiconductor manufacturing platforms that include
Endura®, Producer®, Centura® and Centris®, found in fabs around the
world and used in the production of virtually every chip made.
Vistara was developed over more than four years by hundreds of
engineers from across Applied’s hardware, software, process
technology and ecoefficiency design teams.
“Like its predecessors, Vistara is designed to be a trusted
platform for many years of customer innovation, reliability and
productivity,” said Dr. Prabu Raja, President of the Semiconductor
Products Group at Applied Materials. “Vistara is being launched at
an opportune time when the semiconductor industry needs unique
solutions to address growing chipmaking challenges related to
complexity, cost, cadence and carbon emissions.”
Flexibility
Vistara’s unmatched flexibility helps chipmakers solve the
growing complexity challenges of advanced chipmaking. The Vistara
platform is able to use an unprecedented wide variety of chamber
types, sizes and configurations from Applied and its partners. It
can be configured with four or six wafer batch load ports and from
as few as four to as many as 12 process chambers to address a wide
variety of workloads. The Vistara platform accepts both smaller
chambers used in processes like atomic layer deposition and
chemical vapor deposition as well as larger chambers used in
processes such as epitaxy and etching. Applied and its customers
can combine these chambers to develop IMS™ (Integrated Materials
Solution®) recipes whereby a number of sequential wafer
manufacturing process steps are completed in the same system, under
vacuum. The flexibility of Vistara gives chipmakers IMS technology
combinations that were never possible before, enabling them to
deliver innovative transistors, memories and wiring, improve
performance and power, and protect against yield-killing particles
and defects.
Intelligence
The Vistara platform’s intelligence helps customers address
growing cadence and cost challenges by accelerating time to market
and maximizing productivity and yield in high-volume manufacturing.
Vistara platforms are configured with thousands of sensors that
feed massive, real-time data to Applied’s AIx™ software platform
which offers applications spanning R&D, process transfer and
ramp, and high-volume manufacturing. Actionable data from thousands
of process variables enables engineers to use the power of machine
learning and AI to accelerate recipes that can result in the best
chip performance and power and widest process windows. Intelligence
is incorporated throughout the platform including in the factory
interface module where load locks are intelligently controlled to
optimize pump and vent times, helping chipmakers reduce particles
and defects to maximize yields. Platform robots are automatically
calibrated to reduce start-up times by as much as 75 percent. In
production, the Vistara platform continuously monitors and
calibrates its components to minimize manual intervention, maximize
uptime and predict maintenance needs.
Sustainability
The increase in semiconductor process complexity and steps adds
to the energy and materials needed to produce each wafer. Vistara
is the first platform purpose-built to advance Applied’s “3x30”
initiative designed to achieve 30-percent reductions in equivalent
energy use, the impact of chemical use, and cleanroom floorspace
requirements, all by 2030. Engineers completely redesigned the
Vistara platform’s gas panels to reduce the equivalent energy
consumption by more than 50 percent compared to the previous design
and optimized the way the platform uses energy-intensive sub-fab
components including pumps, heat exchangers and chillers. These
improvements can lower platform energy consumption by as much as 35
percent compared to previous platforms, helping chipmakers reduce
their Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Vistara also reduces the
cleanroom footprint of a system by as much as 30 percent. Such
savings help customers generate more wafers in smaller facilities,
reducing the use of carbon-intensive construction materials such as
concrete and steel, a 30-percent reduction of which can potentially
save 1 million metric tons of carbon for every 100K
wafer-starts-per-month (WSPM) fab built.
Introducing EcoTwin™ Software
Applied is also introducing EcoTwin eco-efficiency software,
available first with the Vistara platform. EcoTwin software uses
sensor data to help engineers monitor the real-time energy and
chemical consumption of chambers, systems and subfab components.
Process engineers can use the EcoTwin dashboard to compare the
carbon impact of alternative chemicals, recipes and production
techniques to continuously improve sustainability over the life of
a node and track and report on progress toward sustainability
goals.
Availability
The first Vistara platforms are being shipped to all leading
memory customers for use in etch applications. Applied expects unit
growth across all of its major platforms as the wafer fab equipment
industry grows to support projected increases in worldwide
semiconductor demand.
Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release
contains forward-looking statements, including those regarding
anticipated benefits of our new products and technologies; expected
growth and trends in our businesses and markets, industry outlooks
and demand drivers, technology transitions, and other statements
that are not historical facts. These statements and their
underlying assumptions are subject to risks and uncertainties and
are not guarantees of future performance. Factors that could cause
actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied
by such statements include, without limitation: failure to realize
anticipated benefits of our new products and technologies; the
demand for semiconductors; customers’ technology and capacity
requirements; the introduction of new and innovative technologies,
and the timing of technology transitions; market acceptance of
existing and newly developed products; the ability to obtain and
protect intellectual property rights in technologies; our ability
to ensure compliance with applicable environmental and other law,
rules and regulations; and other risks and uncertainties described
in our SEC filings, including our recent Forms 10-Q and 8-K. All
forward-looking statements are based on management’s current
estimates, projections and assumptions, and we assume no obligation
to update them.
About Applied MaterialsApplied Materials, Inc.
(Nasdaq: AMAT) is the leader in materials engineering solutions
used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in
the world. Our expertise in modifying materials at atomic levels
and on an industrial scale enables customers to transform
possibilities into reality. At Applied Materials, our innovations
make possible a better future. Learn more at
www.appliedmaterials.com.
Contact:Ricky Gradwohl (editorial/media)
408.235.4676Michael Sullivan (financial community) 408.986.7977
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