ASM International N.V. and SAFC Hitech(TM) Sign Certified Manufacturer and Partnership...( Deal Paves Way For Use of ALD Ultra H...)

Deal Paves Way For Use of ALD Ultra High-k Insulators; Marks Transition to 3x nm Memory Nodes

ALMERE, The Netherlands and ST. LOUIS, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ASM International N.V. (Nasdaq: ASMI; Euronext Exchange in Amsterdam: ASM) and SAFC Hitech(TM), a business segment within SAFC(R), a member of the Sigma-Aldrich(R) Group (Nasdaq: SIAL), today announced that they have entered into a certified manufacturer and partnership agreement for certain Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) source materials for advanced Ultra High-k insulators. The agreement provides certification criteria for the chemical source materials, a license to certain ASM ALD patents and a partnership for the marketing and further development of these chemical source materials.

The newly developed 'cyclopentadienyl' source materials will enable ALD of next generation Strontium and Barium based Ultra High-k insulators with dielectric constants exceeding 100. By comparison, the Zirconium and Hafnium based High-k insulators that are in production today have dielectric constants less than 30 to 40. An insulator with a higher dielectric constant is expected to allow device manufacturers to produce much smaller capacitors for DRAM memory chips, and microprocessors with smaller transistors. These Ultra High-k materials are expected to be needed for production of 3x nm node memories, beginning around 2011.

"We see Moore's law being increasingly enabled by the ability to produce and integrate new materials in the chip manufacturing process," said Dr. Ivo Raaijmakers, ASM's Chief Technology Officer and Director of R&D. "Partnership agreements such as this will allow us to develop new materials much more efficiently, and to prepare the supply chain fo
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