A Chinese company has announced the successful production of an ion implantation machine made entirely with local technologies, marking a breakthrough in a key aspect of chip manufacturing, Xinhua reported on March 17.
China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, which announced the breakthrough, said on Wednesday that its products include ion implanters for medium-beam, high-beam, high-energy, specialty applications, and third-generation semiconductors, covering process segments up to 28nm.
An ion implantation machine is a type of high-pressure mini-accelerator that is widely used in the chip manufacturing process.
It is used for ion implantation of semiconductor materials, large-scale integrated circuits, and devices by obtaining the required ions from an ion source and accelerating it to obtain an ion beam stream of several hundred kilo electron volts energy.
In addition, it can also be used for surface modification of metallic materials and film making.
Ion implantation machines are widely used in doping processes and can meet the requirements of the shallow junction, low temperature, and precise control, and are essential equipment in integrated circuit manufacturing processes.
Last June, China Electronics Technology Group announced the successful development of a million-volt high-energy ion implantation machine with independent intellectual property rights, breaking a decade-long blockade of the technology by other countries.
As essential core equipment in chip manufacturing, China's ion implantation machines rely heavily on foreign countries, especially the development of extremely difficult million-volt high-energy particle implantation machines.
At present, the most advanced international ion implantation machine is the PRHEI6Me produced by the German chip company Prima, which is the only 6-million-volt high-energy ion implantation machine in the world, and the only 6-million-volt high-energy ion implantation machine in the world that has been successfully commercialized.
