On December 21st, 2000 the new MODULUS multilayer metallizer from SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES has reached full customer approval after passing detailed final acceptance tests.
The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Hsinchu is a national research facility to push the Taiwanese high tech industry. Over 6.000 scientists work on issues from semiconductor electronics to optical disc technology, serving both as a source of intellectual property and of well trained and skilled researchers to the Taiwanese industry. One of the goals of ITRI is to develop manufacturing processes and devices for current and future ReWritable optical disc media and to become a major player in the field of optical disc data storage.
On the Dec. 12th the MODULUS metallizer arrived at ITRI. After a two day clean room installation and commissioning period the acceptance tests were carried out. On site SINGULUS engineers demonstrated superior film uniformity for all materials involved in DVD-RAM multilayer systems as well as reliable system operation. It was furthermore demonstrated that due to the employed Smart Cathode technology by mere software parameter changes new style layers of different compositions could be created. On Dec. 21st the final acceptance was approved by ITRI officials and research work started. "We are very pleased with the MODULUS performance and the quick and professional installation on schedule", says Dr. Paul Ho, Director of the Information Storage Division. "Over the past weeks we have developed a very good working relationship and confidence between our engineering teams and we are looking forward to working with SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES on the process technoloies for todays and tomorrows optical disc media."
Background:
SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG, Kahl/Main, Germany introduced the new MODULUS multilayer metallizer for all ReWritable CD and DVD formats in summer 2000.
MODULUS deposits a sequence of very uniform thin films on the disc substrates, which allows recording and erasing of information in phase change technology. In the development phase of the multilayer metallizer, SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES opted for a totally modular design: modularity in the number of process stations and modularity in the configuration of the modules.
The new MODULUS multilayer metallizer works with the well field proven SMART CATHODE, which will be employed for all sputtering processes, no matter whether DC, RF or reactive sputtering is required.
The MODULUS family does include 6 different size systems from 5 to 15 process stations in increments of 2.
- CD-RW can be handled on a 7MODULUS with 7 process stations including 6 sputtering modules and one cooling module.
- DVD-RW needs improved substrate cooling. Therefore the optimum DVD-RW solution needs 9 process stations with 2 additional cooling modules compared to the CD-RW setup.
- a DVD-RAM is the high end format regarding layer design. In order to deposit the 7 layer structure of a DVD-RAM, we employ a 13MODULUS with 9 sputtering and 4 cooling modules.
In addition to these "standard" production type machines SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES offers: A 5 process station size machine for R&D purposes to optimize individual deposition processes for 1:1 transfer to the production machine and a 11 process station size for a second generation DVD-RW and a 15 process station machine for future formats.