Ultratech Acquires Certain Assets Of Oraxion

San Jose, CA -- Ultratech, Inc. announced it has acquired certain assets of Oraxion, Inc., a manufacturer of advanced surface-metrology and stress-analysis equipment for the semiconductor and related industries. Ultratech's management considers this transaction an important component of its strategic growth endeavors in the laser-processing arena. The company plans to utilize Oraxion's CGS-300 wafer inspection/metrology tool in conjunction with its own LSA100 laser spike anneal system used for 65nm and other next-generation devices.

Ultratech Chairman and CEO Arthur W. Zafiropoulo explained, "Oraxion's CGS-300 wafer inspection and metrology tool adds another important technology to our existing product portfolio. In tandem with our LSA100, the CGS-300 provides key capabilities that will further enable the ongoing adoption of our laser spike annealing tools for the manufacture of leading-edge semiconductors. This acquisition allows us to create a fusion of specific technologies that will add significant value to our advanced-device processing systems and ideally position Ultratech to better serve our global customer base."

The CGS-300 represents the next generation of stress metrology tools, enabling highly accurate characterization of stress accumulation as the patterned wafer is processed. As opposed to traditional metrology tools, which produce "full" wafer maps using only 300 points of data on a blanket film at a throughput of 2 wph, the CGS-300 uses a coherent gradient sensing (CGS) metrology to simultaneously provide nearly 600,000 points of data at a throughput of approximately 15 wph. Ultratech believes this combination of speed and accuracy is essential to meeting leading-edge fabs' continually escalating demand for higher throughput and yields.

SOURCE: Ultratech, Inc.