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SC Solutions has developed techniques and tools for physical modeling and model-based control for advanced materials processing. This technology has been successfully applied to the manufacturing of Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) thin films. The results of the physical model provided guidelines for selecting process parameters, and identifying causes for wafer-to-wafer variability in film properties. This variability was reduced by more than 50% using SC’s controller.
 GMR Production Using RF Diode SputteringThe cornerstone of SC Solutions’ technology is physical Model-Based Control Design. With this approach a physical model of the GMR chamber and the sputter process is used directly in the control design. This "virtual" integrated prototyping environment can also be used to evaluate or optimize performance for either existing equipment or for the next generation equipment. GMR materials have tremendous potential for application to technologies such as hard disk read heads for computer data storage, computer memory, and sensors. A common method of producing thin-film GMR material is by RF diode sputtering.SC Solutions has developed, in collaboration with Nonvolatile Electronics (NVE) of Eden Prairie, MN and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, a set of computer models for the physical processes that occur in radio-frequency (RF) diode sputtering for thin film deposition. The resulting RF integrated-voltage controller implemented at NVE reduced wafer-to-wafer variability in film properties by more than 50%. In addition, within-wafer thickness uniformity was substantially improved by adopting equipment modifications suggested by the simulations. This work was funded by DARPA, Applied & Computational Mathematics Program. |
