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Semilab SSM Announces SRP System for Small and Mid-Tier Chip and Solar Manufacturers

SAN FRANCISCO & PITTSBURGH - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Semilab SSM, a division of Semilab, one of the world's largest metrology companies, announced at Semicon West today a new member of its NanoSRP family of metrology products. Designed for small and mid-tier sized semiconductor and solar cell manufacturers, the SRP Express 170 is a manual system that provides density and resistivity depth profiling using spreading resistance profiling technology (SRP).

SRP technology provides a direct measurement of the resistivity and carrier density profiles of electrically active dopants - the same electrical properties that determine device performance. To date, small and mid-tier companies have had to choose between high-end, high throughput systems designed to support multiple samples at a time or older obsolete low-end manual systems.

"The SRP Express 170 fills an important void for SRP needs. With this system manufacturers can replace their aging, manual systems or outsourced services to bring a cost-effective modern system in house," said Nikos Jaeger, GM of Semilab SSM.

The SRP Express 170 will be priced between $200,000-300,000 depending on system configuration and options.

Semilab SSM also announced new offerings for its mercury probing products (495 and 510) to make them easier to use. Mercury probing is required for many applications such as characterizing films, like dielectrics, oxides, or epitaxial layers. SSM's current product requires the mercury to be changed about once a week. The new solution will extend that to 3-6 months reducing the amount of man power to support the product and reducing the amount of handling in a year by more than 90%. The company also announced a mercury changing service with upgraded tools. Semilab will handle the entire mercury handling as part of the service.

"Like SRP, mercury probing is a well established classical technique for metrology and material characterization," said Jaeger. "The demand for the product continues. This upgrade is illustrative of our commitment to provide modern, easy to use products based on well established technologies."

The SRP-Express 170 is available now. The enhanced mercury probes are available as beta tools and will become standard later this year.

About Semilab SSM

Semilab SSM provides process control and characterization systems for sub-2 nm gate oxides, high-k gate dielectrics, oxynitride gate stacks, low-k dielectrics, implantation/anneal, epitaxial silicon, silicon-on-insulator (SOI), and other critical applications. In 1990, SSM introduced the first highly repeatable mercury (Hg) probe mapping system for epitaxial silicon and implant profiling. In 2001, SSM introduced the revolutionary FastGate 6000 series of nondestructive electrical monitoring systems for in-line measurements of electrical oxide thickness, leakage current, implant dose, and other parameters on product wafers. In 2008, SSM introduced the NeoMetrik^TM system for in-line characterization of low-k dielectric films. Semilab SSM operates under the Semilab USA group and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It has direct support facilities in China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan.

About Semilab

One of the world's largest metrology companies, Semilab (www.semilab.com) offers a full family of scalable, flexible solutions to help semiconductor and solar researchers and manufacturers characterize materials to reduce costs and increase yields. Unlike other metrology companies, Semilab partners with customers to build solutions for their specific application needs. Semilab's products support a variety of contact and non-contact measurement from R&D to fully automated inline production. A profitable, worldwide company Semilab is well-positioned for future growth due to the material characterization challenges presented by the drive to smaller nodes and more complex chip structures requiring new materials. Semilab is a leader supplier of electrical test equipment in the largest segment of the solar cell market enabling it to take advantage of that market's growth.

Lois Paul & Partners
Michael Parker, 781-738-4352
On-site at Semicon West
or
Lois Paul & Partners
Stephanie Hueter, 781-782-5795