JSR Corp yesterday launched an advanced planarization process solutions research center in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口) to help major semiconductor customers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), shorten the development time for new chips.
JSR supplies lithography materials, process materials, deposition materials and advanced electronic materials.
The new lab would enhance JSR’s capability to conduct local material evaluations, strengthen customer support and accelerate development of next-generation chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP) materials, the Tokyo-based company said.
Photo courtesy of JSR Corp
The lab is equipped with advanced CMP equipment from Applied Materials Inc, designed to deliver higher productivity, improved wafer performance and enhanced process control for leading-edge technology nodes, JSR said.
The lab would primarily focus on studying and supplying new CMP slurry to TSMC, aligning with the chipmaker’s technological shift to the new gate-all-around (GAA) transistor architecture, JSR chairman Hank Hori said at an inauguration ceremony.
TSMC has adopted the GAA architecture for its 2-nanometer process and more advanced technology nodes to overcome scaling limitations, a shift that would significantly increase demand for CMP technology due to higher process complexity and new materials, as well as increasing wafer, slurry and pad consumption.
“As the world is ushering in the artificial intelligence [AI] era, demand for advanced chips is growing bigger and bigger. That also creates greater challenges for CMP” technology to achieve ultra-high surface flatness,” TSMC vice president for advanced tool and module development Simon Jang (章勳明) said at the ceremony.
Jang, one of the first CMP engineers at TSMC when he joined the company more than 30 years ago, said the chipmaker has advanced its manufacturing technology to sub-1 nanometer nodes, with Applied Materials supplying CMP equipment and JSR providing slurry.
The launch of the new JSR lab follows a trend in which major global semiconductor equipment or material suppliers, such as ASML Holding NV and Lam Research Corp, are localizing operations in the form of research or training centers, Jang said.
This trend should significantly shorten TSMC’s development time for new technologies and allow it to migrate to next-generation chips faster, as product qualifications can be conducted locally in Taiwan rather than being done at labs in the US or Japan, he said.
JSR senior officer Toru Kimura said the company’s new lab in Taiwan would “enable closer collaboration and faster development of solutions for advanced semiconductor processes.”
The company said it would work closely with semiconductor manufacturers worldwide to accelerate the development of next-generation solutions and contribute to the industry’s sustainable growth.
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