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The NanoGrowth™ PECVD tool for low-temperature growth of nanomaterials

The most advanced tool designed and developed for carbon nanotube growth across a wide range of temperatures. The patented growth process (PCT/GB02/003438) developed from ground-breaking research by the Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) at the University of Surrey in the UK, has been combined with CEVP’s leading edge plasma process equipment, developed for high-pressure plasma based nanotube and wire growth. For the first time this gives the user a complete nanomaterials growth system, with fully tested and optimised process recipes. The software control system also allows the research scientists to develop their own growth regimes in a very stable and repeatable process environment. If you are working with CVD based nonaligned growth at high temperatures, or require precision alignment at high or lower substrate temperatures, NanoGrowth™ technology will allow research scientists the flexibility to use the substrate material of their choice, leading the way for the next generation of technology.

NanoGrowth carbon nanotube (CNT) growth tools are designed as a complete nanomaterials development package, providing the research scientist with the growth equipment, exhaust management and proven growth procedures, with recipes developed to provide the desirable material characteristics required for use in leading technology.

The tool design makes it possible to be used by scientists who have limited knowledge of plasma based processing or CVD equipment. It is controlled by NanoSoft™, CEVP’s industry leading touch-screen SCADA interface and control software, which allows fully interlocked manual operation for process development and full recipe driven automatic operation for unattended or production runs requiring high levels of repeatability. Software canned cycles for repetitive operations like pumping, gas purging and venting have been designed to simplify tool operation. Specialised software routines developed to alter materials characteristics are included as standard in the control package:

• Graphical interface MIMIC of system
• Manual controls page
• Automatic sequence page
• Full process parameter trending pages
• Diagnostics facility page
• Alarms and interlocks page
• Engineering page
• On screen data entry keyboard
• Fully interlocked for safer operation in manual and automatic modes of operation
• 3 levels of password protection for Advanced User, Operator and Engineer
• Full alarm reporting and txt file creation to log system error
• Programmable process tolerance protection on automatic runs
• Full datalogging in manual and automatic modes
• Full wafer/substrate traceability data logging on each process run

Advanced process features help with material characteristics:

• Process gas pulsing during growth
• Continuous mode sequence operation
• Gradient mode sequence operation
• Process tolerance editing to enhance repeatability
• 'On the fly' auto tuning provides very stable pressure performance during large changes in gas flow rate
• Power ramping between plasma and bias power supplies during growth phase
• Very accurate and repeatable thermal control of the process chucks for both hot and cold processes

NanoGrowth tool technology is developed to be highly reliable so that research scientists can concentrate on their research and not have to worry about keeping the tool running. Preventative maintenance is very simple, and requires only a few hours a week, and can be done by technicians used to working on vacuum equipment. Tool uptime is better than 90% with a MTTR of 30 minutes.

Wafer chuck technology
Wafer chucks designed to run different growth processes, from PECVD low temperature aligned growth, to aligned or conventional CVD high temperature growth, are interchangeable with the plasma chamber. These chucks take less than 15 minutes to change once the chamber is at atmospheric pressure. No specialist tools are required to swap from one chuck or showerhead type to another. The growth chamber is configured for a chuck / showerhead combination for Ø76mm or Ø3" wafers, but is capable of accepting a Ø150mm wafer chuck when available.

Gas control & delivery subsystem
The NanoGrowth tool uses proven digital mass flow controllers with Profibus communication technology. Digital MFC technology is already widely used throughout the semiconductor industry for gas control and delivery systems. Full isolation and point of entry filtration, with toxic gas bypass and purge is fitted as standard. All delivery lines use electro polished VIM/VAR tube and metal sealed VCR connections. This gives the user confidence that process gas delivery has not introduced any contamination to the product.

NanoGrowth1000n series tools are designed to meet international safety standards like SEMI S2 and are CE marked showing compliance with European directives on machinery safety and the low voltage directive. Safe operation of the equipment and protection of the user are at the forefront of our tool design philosophy. Prototype lab built equipment and one off designs can all suffer from the same problems of reliability and safety.

Worldwide service support
NanoGrowth tool technology is designed to be compact and reliable, with tool and process support throughout the world. Nothing is more frustrating to a research scientist that purchasing technology that is unreliable and unsupported in their location. Our worldwide sales and support agents have full service and upgrade capabilities for the full range of tool options. They are also able to provide extended warranty and long-term maintenance contracts, giving piece of mind to the end user. Spending valuable time on research rather than trying to keep prototype equipment running, will help bring your project in on time and within budget.

Rugged tool pumping system
Unlike other PECVD and CVD based thin film processes, the tool pumping system does not require the use of costly magnetic bearing technology and chemical series turbo pumps. All process pumping is from the primary mechanical pump, with high vacuum pumping achieved by an isolated, conventional turbo pump. After pumping the chamber to high vacuum, the turbo pump is isolated by an automatic gate valve. This prevents process gas from coming in to contact with the pump during plasma processing when process by products are at their most aggressive.

Accessories and options

• CVD Hot Chuck System with Gas showerhead module: Chuck showerhead combination used for high temperature CVD or PECVD growth for nano wires and tubes. Change over time is less than half an hour from vent up.
• Plasma Cold Chuck for aligned growth: Chuck showerhead combination for plasma based growth at reduced substrate temperatures. RF and DC plasma capable with very high power density across wafer
• Load Lock system with Automatic Substrate Transport into chamber: Single chamber load lock system with automatic wafer transport. Recommended for processes running toxic gases and high temperature growth processes.
• Dual Ended Load Lock for two process chamber cluster: Top Loading Load Lock used for transport of substrates between the NanoGrowth™ chamber and nano cluster source process module. Load Lock is positioned between chambers and automatic wafer delivery is controlled from the tool computer. Load lock uses SEMI standard slot valve configuration at each end.
• Nanocluster Source Process Module for Catalyst Development: Complete Nano Cluster deposition process module. Interfaces to the NanoGrowth™ tool dual ended load lock. Used for development of Nanocluster catalysts in conjunction with growth tool. (Can be supplied as stand alone tool with common control system)
• Sputter Module for Catalyst growth: PVD Sputter module with 2 material targets both RF and DC capable. Used for sputtering metal and dielectric layers for catalyst generation. Interface to Load Lock by SEMI standard slot valve configuration.
• Cluster Tool with distribution system: Complete process tool with Load Lock, Distribution chamber, Pre treatment Module (Plasma etch/clean and bake), NanoGrowth™ module, PVD sputter Module and optional Nano cluster module.
• 8 Channel Digital Profibus Mass Flow Controller (MFC) gas box: Upgrade from 4-channel module to 8 channels so doped and undoped Silicon nano wire processes can be run.
• Tool Interface Transformer for USA and Non Standard voltages: Alternative lab voltages can be used with this interface transformer available as standard for all US voltages and many others throughout the world.
• Point of Use Gas Abatement system: Point of use compact exhaust gas destruction/absorption system for process gas exhaust management.
• Optical plasma monitor for gas species detection: Optical monitoring system for plasma gas species detection in real time. Including all fibre-optic feedthroughs, cables, software and integration with tool computer control software.
• High Pressure MKS Spectra Vision RGA with differential pumping system: Industry leading Residual Gas Analyser (RGA) and pumping system for real time gas species monitoring
• MKS Instruments Direct liquid Injection (DLI) control sub system: Used for reliable and accurate mass flow control of Ferrocene delivery to the growth chamber in vapour form. Ferrocene is used as CNT growth catalyst in some processes.