Used TEL Thin Flim Deposition Equipment LEXIA™-EX

The TEL LEXIA™-EX is a single-wafer dielectric thin-film deposition platform from Tokyo Electron (TEL) designed for 300mm advanced logic and memory chip manufacturing; it represents the latest generation in the LEXIA series. Rather than being an ALD (Atomic Layer Deposition) system, it utilizes CVD/PECVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition/Plasma-Enhanced CVD) processes to deposit dielectric films, positioning it as a competitor to single-wafer PECVD tools such as the Novellus Vector Express.

Process Positioning: The LEXIA-EX is primarily tasked with dielectric thin-film deposition at advanced nodes. Typical applications include sidewall spacers, etch-stop layers, diffusion barriers, hard masks, and films used for planarization. The system supports a wide range of precursor chemistries, enabling the deposition of silicon oxide, silicon nitride, and doped dielectric films, with process recipes that can be flexibly adapted to various integration schemes. Its single-wafer architecture ensures excellent within-wafer uniformity and wafer-to-wafer repeatability, meeting the stringent requirements for film thickness and interface quality demanded by advanced logic devices.

Platform Design: Built on TEL’s 300mm cluster platform, the system can integrate multiple process modules to meet high-volume manufacturing throughput requirements. The reaction chambers are optimized for thermal budget control and particle suppression; combined with precise gas delivery and temperature control systems, they ensure high film density while minimizing defect density. Within TEL’s deposition portfolio, the LEXIA series serves as the primary workhorse for high-volume dielectric film deposition, complementing the EVAROS and EXIM systems—which focus on ALD—by addressing a different segment of the process technology spectrum.

Applications: The LEXIA-EX is primarily used in the patterning and interconnect modules of advanced logic chips, and it can also be applied to the deposition of dielectric layers in memory devices. While its application scope overlaps in certain areas with ASM’s XP8 Synergis thermal ALD platform and XP8 PEALD series, its technical approach is centered on CVD rather than atomic-layer-level deposition.

In short, the LEXIA-EX is TEL’s primary high-volume production platform for single-wafer dielectric CVD at advanced nodes. Together with the ALD/PEALD equipment you have previously looked into, it completes the full picture of advanced thin-film deposition processes.