Brian Cooper is the senior technical service representative for PSI. With more than a decade of experience he can answer most of your technical processing questions. Brian works directly with production control and engineering to ensure your wafer processing goes smoothly. Feel free to call Brian to get some information, a processing quote, check status on your order, or  expedite your wafers through the Fab and process.

Dianne McKenzie is also a technical service representative, and she tracks wafer movement in the Fab areas. Dianne works directly with production control and engineering to ensure your custom wafer processing goes smoothly. Feel free to call Dianne to get information, a processing quote, check status on your order or to expedite your wafers through the process.

Kevin Schroeder is a technical service representative and tracks wafer movement in the Fab areas. Kevin also manages quality control.  He works directly with production control and engineering. Feel free to call Kevin to check status on your order, or to expedite your wafers through the fabrication process.

Here we are looking at the Incoming material disposition racks

 Wafers arrive at our facility by our Truck, UPS, Fed-Ex, DHL or other shipping company. Next they are counted, inspected for damage and then barcoded, scanned and matched with the proper paperwork. After this procedure a Order Confirmation is created using information from the Clients Purchase Order. Next the Process Order Confirmation is faxed to the client, then the client has a 24 hour period to correct any mistakes in the process recipe. Only then are process runcards created and the wafers placed in a coded position in the Queue by Production Control.

This whole process usually takes from 24-48 hours and with <.1% mis-processed wafers out of nearly 400,000 processed last year, we think the extra time and checks are well worth it!

One of the Photolithography areas in Fab One

 In this area we are doing larger geometry work on 100mm through 300mm wafers. The Canon 501's and 600FA's are capable of imaging and aligning layers with CD's down to about 2.0um.

A new addition in 2005 was the 300mm OAI proximity aligner you can see in the center of the tunnel. The OAI is capable of 3um+ geometries and can image the entire wafer in a single exposure. Making this tool very useful for 300mm lithography jobs that require full wafer imaging.

In an adjoining bay is a glass enclosed Class 10 area with a full HEPA ceiling. In this second Photolithography area we are running an Ultratech 1500 Stepper and a Suss MA 200CC. The Ultratech is capable of stepping 6 inch wafers with geometries down to .7um. The Suss is used for 6 and 8 inch proximity lithography.

All wafers are tracked and logged through every step in the process using bar code scanners and a computerized logging system. This system is also designed to generate all the process data we need for our SPC charts and reports. In addition we can call up and duplicate custom processes we ran for our customers, years after first processed through our Fab areas.

One of the 200mm diffusion furnace load stations

Note all the diffusion furnaces at Process Specialties are cantilever load and auto push pull. This means low particle thin films and no warped wafers!

Now we enter the Fab Two manufacturing area. It was completed January 1996, and in 2009 is still a "State of the Art" facility. This 1,500 square foot clean room was constructed using all the latest materials and technologies. It has a full ULPA Filter ceiling (.12um particle retention) and every bell and whistle a first class Fab can have!

In this set of clean rooms we change the air 390 times per hour, if you do the math with ULPA filtration this is a Class One facility (at rest, FED-209E Class One). Since we are not making microprocessors here, and we don't want to wear "space suits" we run it as a class 10 Fab, even though it consistently runs well below Class 10.

Here in the FAB Two Photolithography area we see one of our 200mm I-Line Steppers.

Another view of the Fab Two Photolithography area

The World's First true 300mm production furnace

Our development and design of this tool began in 1992, it was installed in December of 1995 and became fully operational in January of 1996. In February of 1997 we installed our second true 300mm production furnace tool. Since then our 300mm diffusion tools have processed more 300mm wafers through custom Thermal Oxide, Poly Silicon and Silicon Nitride thin film services, than any other tools of their kind in the World.

The unloading of 300mm wafers after oxidation

 We commonly see uniformities of 1% or less across the wafers (furnace prime), as well as no detectable flatness changes or diffusion related slip has been found on any 300mm Oxidized wafers.

Process Specialties developed the world's first production 300mm Nitride system! We began processing 300mm LPCVD Silicon Nitride in May of 1997. Since then we have processed over 100,000 wafers through the 300mm Nitride deposition system(s).

Currently in our PS300A and PS300B diffusion tools we are running three Thermal Oxide tubes, one Polysilicon and two LPCVD Nitride systems for 300mm wafers. This means we can out produce any of our competitors on these key thin films. This translates into faster turn times for our customers.

Accuracy in metrology is never an issue

At Process Specialties. We use advanced robotic laser ellipsometers and other calibrated tools for precision thin film, resistivity, CD and step height measurement.

In 2005 with the introduction of our New Calibration Standards product line PSI Standards, our thin films truly are the industry standard. The PSI Standards Laboratory is ISO/IEC 17025  Accredited through NVLAP/NIST, Lab code 200669-0.

One of the SEM Labs located in our facility. In this one we are using a field emission tool for everything from looking at photoresist profiles and measuring CD's to double checking metal deposition thicknesses. At the helm, another one of our process engineers you may have spoken with Mark Hinkle.

In January of 1999 we opened an additional 2,000 square feet of "State of the Art" Class One Clean room.

This clean room area has increased our 300mm & 200mm processing capabilities including more PVD Metalization, 300mm Wet processing and 300mm stepped Photolithography, all in a Class One environment. In 2008 Process Specialties continues to have more "in-house" 300mm processing capacity than nearly all of its competitors. This translates into Faster Turn Times for our customers custom processing orders.

Views of the Fab 3 Lithography area

In this area we have a 300mm I-Line stepper, 300mm resist track, and a 300mm wafer inspection system