Veeco Instruments Inc. announced that it has shipped its first IBD300 Ion Beam Deposition (IBD) System to a Tier 1 memory customer for evaluation. With this product launch, Veeco introduces a differentiated deposition technology to the semiconductor industry that is expected to enable the industry?s roadmap. Compared to conventional sputter deposition technologies like Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD), Veeco?s IBD300 System has proven to achieve up to 20% lower film resistivity.

The superior on-wafer performance is achieved by using unique ion beam deposition hardware and process parameters to control the grain orientation and grain size of the thin metal film. The lower resistivity enables memory manufacturers to continue to scale their devices to meet future performance requirements. Veeco is planning to ship a second system to another Tier 1 customer in the coming months and if these evaluations are successful, expects initial high volume manufacturing orders as early as late 2024 or 2025.

The enabling capability of Veeco?s IBD300 provides a significant opportunity to expand the company?s served available market into the deposition space in front-end Semi. Applications such as DRAM bitline and Logic wiring where low resistivity metals like tungsten, ruthenium and molybdenum are critical would benefit greatly from IBD.