SOKUDO Co., Ltd. announced today that its revolutionary SOKUDO DUO coat/develop track platform has been running at a customer site at 300wph during lithography processing, the industry's highest track system throughput. By incorporating an innovative dual track design, this next-generation track system dramatically improved wafer output -- which has traditionally been limited to approximately 200wph.
At the end of last year, SOKUDO DUO systems were installed at a production fab of Toshiba's Semiconductor Company to conduct system performance evaluation in a photolithography process. During Toshiba's evaluation, the system substantially improved previous processing benchmarks, demonstrating 300wph throughput in stand-alone coat and develop track configurations.
Improving system productivity has become increasingly critical for semiconductor manufacturers to reduce production costs, while continuing to accelerate patterning technology for advanced linewidths. This customer validation confirms the SOKUDO DUO system's high throughput processing, and its capability to significantly boost productivity performance.
SOKUDO Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Kyoto, Japan) is a joint venture company owned by Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co., Ltd. and Applied Materials, Inc. SOKUDO was established on July 3, 2006 for the development, manufacturing, sales and service of advanced coat/develop track equipment for semiconductor production. Additional information on SOKUDO can be found at www.sokudo.com.