At a glance
| Booth | N0367 |
| Country | TW |
| Website | www.samcointl.com |
Company profile
Samco Inc. is a process equipment company that develops and manufactures deposition, dry-etching and surface-treatment systems for major industrial customers and academic facilities worldwide, and it provides process expertise and turnkey systems to manufacturers in compound semiconductors, photonics, MEMS and other industries. Established in 1979, Samco began as a venture company in a small garage in Kyoto, Japan, with the objective of supplying semiconductor and electronic-component manufacturing systems to a global clientele. In the same year it delivered its first Plasma Chemical Vapor Deposition product for a-Si solar-cell research, and it later grew into a worldwide corporation with nearly 200 employees serving both research and production users. The name Samco is a contraction of Semiconductor And Materials COmpany, reflecting the company's work in compound semiconductors and materials science and its continuing research and development in compound-semiconductor materials. Samco places thin-film technology at the center of its business and organizes its process expertise around Chemical Vapor Deposition, dry etching and dry cleaning or surface treatment. Its CVD equipment forms thin films by introducing reactive gases onto semiconductor substrates and inducing chemical reactions through plasma or other techniques, with functions including protection from moisture and dust and provision of electrical insulation. Samco's liquid source CVD process uses proprietary raw materials and is described as enabling high-speed deposition at reduced temperatures. For dry etching, Samco focuses on microfabrication of thin films and on compound-semiconductor processing, including materials such as gallium nitride and silicon carbide that are used for next-generation power devices. For dry cleaning, Samco uses plasma generated from reactive gases in vacuum to clean semiconductor-substrate surfaces, and its Aqua Plasma technology is used for applications including surface reduction of silver and copper and bonding of resins. Samco also supplies ultraviolet ozone cleaners that combine UV light, ozone and stage heating for ashing and surface treatment. The company states that its business has expanded from electronics, semiconductors and electronic components toward life-science and healthcare fields while continuing its materials-science and electronics activities. Its history therefore combines equipment development for research laboratories with process systems intended for production, while retaining the venture-company approach described in its corporate history.
Exhibits
Samco's etching portfolio covers Atomic Layer Etching, Inductively Coupled Plasma etching, Silicon Deep Reactive Ion Etching, Reactive Ion Etching and Xenon Difluoride etching for semiconductor substrates, research work and production environments. The systems use reactive gases and plasma for targeted material removal and surface treatment, with ALE providing nano-level control, ICP providing high-density plasma etching, and DRIE addressing MEMS and TSV applications. Atomic Layer Etching separates adsorption and reaction into repeated steps so that etch depth can be controlled at the nano level. Samco identifies ALE applications including control of GaN or AlGaN film thickness, preservation of surface smoothness through low-rate etching, and p-GaN/AlGaN high-selectivity etching for GaN HEMT devices. For ALE, Samco offers the RIE-400iP-ALE and RIE-800iP-ALE ICP etching systems for use from research through production. The RIE-800iP-ALE is an 8-inch load-lock Atomic Layer Etching system, while the RIE-400iP-ALE is a 4-inch load-lock system intended for precise depth control. ALE system features listed by Samco include a robust fast-switching gas input valve, the HSTC Hyper Symmetrical Tornado Coil source, high-flow exhaust and endpoint monitoring. Additional ALE applications listed by Samco include recess etching for GaN HEMT, 2D-material etching, photonic-crystal etching, and low-rate, low-damage etching. Samco's ICP systems are designed to generate high-density plasma for precise etching across III-V compound semiconductors such as GaN, GaAs and InP, as well as silicon, SiC, quartz, glass, dielectrics and metals. The ICP lineup includes RIE-802iPC and RIE-800iPC 8-inch cassette-loading systems, with the RIE-802iPC configured as a dual-reaction-chamber system and the RIE-800iPC described for high-rate uniform etching. The RIE-800iP is an 8-inch load-lock ICP-RIE system, while RIE-400iPC and RIE-400iP are 4-inch systems using cassette loading and load lock respectively. For batch and small-diameter wafer work, the lineup includes RIE-350iPC at 350 mm, RIE-230iPC at 230 mm with cassette loading, and RIE-230iP at 230 mm with load lock and carrier-tray transfer. The RIE-100HiC is a 6-inch cassette-loading ICP-RIE system described for high-speed atmospheric transfer. Across the ICP line, Samco lists high etch rates, excellent uniformity, substrate-bias and ion-energy control, wafer-temperature control from -10C to +200C by ESC, and an extensive process library. Applications identified for the ICP systems include MicroLEDs, laser diodes, SiC power devices, GaN RF devices, SAW and BAW filters, capacitors and MEMS devices. Samco states that its patented Tornado ICP coil can achieve plasma densities up to 1,000 times those of conventional capacitively coupled plasma RIE systems, supporting high-speed and high-aspect-ratio etching of compound semiconductors, silicon and metal thin films. Samco also uses electromagnetic-field simulation to optimize the Tornado ICP coil for plasma uniformity and etching performance in both research and production. For Silicon Deep Reactive Ion Etching, Samco states that it was the first Japanese semiconductor process-equipment manufacturer to provide DRIE systems using the Bosch Process. Its DRIE systems cover a range of sample sizes and chamber counts for MEMS device fabrication and TSV via-hole etching, and a double-reaction-chamber specification is available for high-volume device manufacturing. Reactive Ion Etching products include a compact benchtop RIE etcher for academic device research and die deprocessing in IC failure analysis. Open-load and load-lock RIE systems provide a process window for plasma etching of silicon, dielectrics, compound semiconductors, metals, polymers and photoresist, while cassette-loading RIE systems are offered to improve device-fabrication throughput. The XeF2 etching system is intended mainly for removing silicon sacrificial layers in MEMS fabrication through a dry process that avoids device destruction from stiction and removes the need for the pretreatment and post-processing associated with wet processing. Samco's VPE-4F implements XeF2 etching in a compact tabletop system. Together, the etching lineup spans R&D and production and gives users choices among nano-level cyclic etching, high-density ICP processing, deep silicon etching, conventional RIE and isotropic XeF2 processing according to substrate, film and device requirements.
Capabilities and products
- PECVD thin-film deposition systems
- Atomic Layer Etching (ALE) systems
- ICP high-density plasma etching systems
- silicon DRIE systems for MEMS/TSV
- Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) systems
- XeF₂ dry isotropic etching systems
- Plasma Cleaner surface cleaning systems
- UV-Ozone Cleaner surface cleaning systems