Nova’s highly sensitive metrology and advanced process control technologies provide differentiated solutions with industrial scale productivity to address the semiconductor industry’s materials metrology challenges.

As integrated circuits and their components continue to scale, numerous novel materials and compounds are introduced to the production process. This evolution carries various implications, such as layers used to fabricate advanced devices becoming thinner, or the need to provide extensive information on material properties, in order to stabilize R&D stage process, and to ensure effective process control in high-volume-manufacturing.

Each layer deposited on a device can range from a single atomic layer to several nanometers in thickness. Small variations in composition and material properties, or miscalculation of even a few atoms can negatively impact both device functionality, and manufacturing yield. As a result, today’s device manufacturers have an even greater need for non-destructive means to monitor film composition and structure, and to implement process control based on ultra-thin film thickness and other material properties such as stress, strain, crystallinity, phases and more.

Nova brings a broad spectrum of technologies previously only available in laboratories, such as X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Raman Spectroscopy, to provide extensive information by measuring a wide range of applications. Nova’s materials metrology solutions eliminate the need for lab-based reference metrology, thereby reducing manufacturing downtime and enhancing data quality.