American Institute of Chemical Engineers - Northern California Section

The Semiconductor Industry has relied on the continual improvement in performance and cost as enabled by Moore's law. In recent generations, the amount of change in device design and the incorporation of new materials have accelerated as the traditional methods to shrink from previous generations have become increasingly difficult. This talk will focus on addressing these challenges from a semiconductor equipment supplier's perspective.

We will walk through an example of the development of a new semiconductor processing technology from the initial identification of a technical challenge to the translation of the technical solution into a system capable of handling high volume production. Specifically, we will examine the challenge of cleaning post-etch patterned porous low dielectric constant material, used for lowering the capacitance of a device's interconnect wiring. Development of a straightforward model of the problem has led to a fundamental understanding of the key mechanisms that can be leveraged to clean residues from device features without damaging the underlying material. This understanding is then translated into a novel confined chemical processing technology, which is then incorporated into a complete wafer processing production tool. The diverse array of engineering skill sets required in this product development process will also be highlighted.

Dr. Dave Hemker has spent the past 20 years in the semiconductor industry focusing on advanced process equipment development. He joined Lam Research Corporation in 1998 and is currently the Vice President of New Product Development, responsible for next-generation product research and development. Prior to joining Lam, Dr. Hemker was Vice President of Technology for PMT/Trikon, where he was responsible for research and development, technology, and engineering. He also spent five years in various technology roles at Applied Materials. He received his Ph.D. and MS degrees in chemical engineering from Stanford University and his BS degree in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin. He holds over 25 patents and has authored several technical publications in the areas of semiconductor processing and thin-film applications.

Reservations requested by End of Day May 13, 2008.

Menu: select pasta, chicken, seafood, or vegetarian
Pasta Appetizer - Pasta with a Tomato Basil Sauce
Mixed Green or Caesar Salad
Chicken Entree - Chicken with Mushroom sauce
Seafood Entree - I suggest our Tilapia with a Beurblanc Sauce.
The above entrees come with mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables.
Vegetarian Entree - Vegetarian Lasagna
Dessert (Choose One) - Tiramisu, Mudd Pie, Spumoni Ice Cream, Raspberry Sorbet
On-Line RSVP

May 2008 North Bay Meeting Notice