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Tungsten coatings are commonly used in semiconductor applications and have the potential to be used in emerging solar energy applications. These thin films are commonly subject to high stress and low adhesion, but when manufacturers try and compensate for stress, it leads to increased resistivity. In order to achieve the best performance and repeatability for… Read More
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Spit defects are some of the biggest obstacles to ensuring thickness uniformity and production efficiency in evaporation and indium bump deposition. There are ways to adjust your process to eliminate spit defects and improve yield, but if you work with a partner who has solved for these defects in their system design, you will realize… Read More
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Medical devices often require thin film coatings to optimize performance and longevity, while also ensuring patient safety. Because these devices often feature unique properties compared to “normal” substrates, such as a completely curved or flexible structure, they have challenging thin film deposition process requirements. Magnetron sputtering with an inverted cylindrical cathode is one thin film… Read More
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Material transfer efficiency may not be the biggest concern for all coatings, but when using precious metals, it becomes a major factor in cost of ownership. For applications that require the use of precious metals to ensure performance, like metal contacts and superconducting tape, your thin film deposition system design will play a major role… Read More
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One of the most important requirements for precision optics is thickness uniformity of thin film coatings. Achieving a high degree of uniformity on flat optics usually requires complex motion or restricted deposition zoned, which often lowers deposition rates. For curved optics, there is no practical way to achieve the uniformity needed through a conventional thin… Read More
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To form indium bumps, a patterned mask is applied to the wafer and then indium is deposited. The patterned mask has “holes” that allow some indium to deposit directly onto the wafer, while the rest of the indium is deposited onto the mask. After indium bump deposition, the unwanted indium and the mask must be… Read More
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An inverted cylindrical cathode configuration, compared to a planar or confocal configuration, has a few notable benefits because of its highly unique design. Unlike most cathode arrangements, where the cathodes sputter down, up or across the chamber, an inverted cylindrical cathode sputters inward toward the center of the cylinder. This offers several advantages for precision… Read More
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When investing in thin film deposition equipment, you need to think beyond the short-term results you want to achieve and focus on long-term goals and improvements. Your vendor should have the same focus, as well as the engineering capability to deliver continuous improvement, so you gain reliability, functionality and added value in your system over… Read More
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Upgrades deliver a number of benefits without the need to invest in brand new equipment. They provide a cost-effective way to lower your cost of ownership, improve process capabilities and reduce maintenance and downtime. The ability to upgrade your thin film deposition configuration depends largely on your specific system, your application and process needs and… Read More
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Precision optics applications require thin film coatings to meet very exacting specs for factors such as refractive index, optical loss, thickness, optical transmission and uniformity. To do this, manufacturers need a full precision optics coating system configured with in-situ control that directly monitors optical properties. Effects on Performance and Yield In precision optics, the acceptable… Read More