Overview

Novellus VECTOR Express is an improvement to Novellus’ 300 mm VECTOR plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) platform that was introduced in 2007. It maintains industry-leading capital and footprint productivity by improving process throughput by up to 40%, while delivering benchmark thin film process performance that is critical to tool extendibility to 45 nm and beyond. The SmartSoak processing feature is incorporated in VECTOR Express which utilizes the multi-station sequential processing (MSSP) architecture of VECTOR to control wafer heat-up independently from film deposition, improving film quality and reducing processing time . VECTOR Express is also available in an ashable hard mask configuration (VECTOR Express AHM), designed to deposit films for the high aspect ratio patterning requirements required by 193 nm lithography.