Magnetic bearings

Stringent demands in
semiconductor manufacturing
make magnetic bearings
increasingly suitable for
equipment that handles and

Magneti
processes wafers.

bearings Shawn Gibson

General manager

on the Daren Tremaine

Technology manager

rise
SKF Magnetic Bearings
Calgary, Alberta Canada

A
s chip circuitry
shrinks, it re-
quires new (in-
creasingly sensitive)
processes. So, controlled
environments devoid of contami-
nants are increasingly important, as
is the precision with which the wa-
fers are handled.
 of  — Environment. Typi-
cally, wafers are processed in her-
metically sealed environments that
are cleaner than even conventional
clean rooms. Here, programmable
controllers determine factors such
as pressure, temperature, and what
process gases fill the space. (The
gases can be extremely corrosive
and even dangerous.) Semiconduc-
tor manufacturers refer to these
parameter combinations, which are
proprietary formulas, as recipes.
In a typical process, an automated
system places a wafer into a process
chamber, which is then filled with
a specific gas at a temperature and
pressure specified by the recipe.
Equipment then performs opera-
tions required for the wafer. Once
processing is complete, the system
might pull a vacuum on the cham-

20 FEBRUARY 2009 MOTION SYSTEM DESIGN • www.motionsystemdesign.com

 The demand for more compact
electronic products has driven
microchip manufacturers to
build increasingly complex chip
circuitry while maintaining and
often decreasing chip size. In
fact, state-of-the-art chips now
have circuitry with structure
tant for ensuring that other sensitive
assemblies surrounding the rotat-
ing components are not disturbed.
However, in most systems installed
today, active control of vibration and
wafer position during processing is
nonexistent. Once a purely me-

ic
widths of 45 nanometers or
less. These chip structures
are built by up to 300 process
steps of deposition, removal,
patterning, and modification of
silicon wafer electrical proper-
ties. Sophisticated semicon-
ductor equipment performs
the required atomic layer
deposition, photolithography,
and rapid thermal annealing.
Shown here is the final inspec-
tion process.
but in order to do that with required
cleanliness, the environments must
be well regulated.
 of  — Motion control. Giv-
en the precision required to produce
circuitry measured in nanometers,
chip manufacturers must know the
exact location of a wafer during in-
stallation of its circuit elements. Of
course, different applications have
different positioning precision re-
quirements, but the operative term
encompassing both positioning and
ber to remove process gases. Then vibration is active control.
chanical wafer-positioning device is
calibrated and put in service, process
results are more or less permanent.
The only way to correct a deficient
process is to take the system offline
and recalibrate it. In contrast, active
control allows on-the-fly positioning
and vibration adjustments through
user entry of parameters into a con-
troller capable of corrections.
Magnetic bearing use
Magnetic bearings deliver on
both environmental and control re-
quirements. They use electromag-
netic coils to suspend or levitate a
rotating shaft in any surrounding
medium, including process gases or
vacuums. Sensors monitor shaft po-
sition and supply that data to a digi-
tal controller. In turn, the controller
can change current in the coils and
thereby change the electromagnetic
forces on the shaft. In terms of con-
trol loop speed, these changes are
quick, allowing precise maintenance
of shaft position whether at stand-
still or at high rotational speed.
Note that the devices described

*
new gases can be introduced, and
additional operations performed on
the wafer, as required. Gas removal
and vacuum creation are done using
turbomolecular pumps, or TMPs.
What is happening is that the auto-
mated system is accumulating (lay-
er-by-layer) required wafer circuitry.
Elements are deposited, then some
are removed, and then new elements
are added. Gradually, all required
layers are applied to the wafers —
With TMPs and excimer laser here are named as they function as
blowers, the ability to actively mini- bearings, but are more than bearings
mize vibration is particularly impor- in the traditional sense: They are
Today, magnetic bearings are installed on more than
70,000 TMPs in semiconductor fabrication plants. In
addition, other equipment with magnetic bearings such
as rapid thermal anneal systems and blowers for lasers
have found their way into semiconductor plants —
­ and the
technology may prove useful elsewhere.

FEBRUARY 2009 MOTION SYSTEM DESIGN • www.motionsystemdesign.com 21

 Magnetic bearings

integrated motor and bearing sys- automated supervisory systems di-

tems. When most people hear the
word bearing, they think of a rolling-
element bearing. So once they have
selected a rolling-element bearing,
they think: Now I must buy a shaft,
and a motor, and a motor drive ... In
fact, many different components
must be carefully integrated to make
an effective system.
Magnetic bearing systems com-
bine these components in one unit
with integral controls that interface
directly with existing or preselected
control systems. Then in operations,
rect the integrated magnetic bearing
controller to levitate the rotor on
which the wafer is mounted and ro-
tate it at a precise speed. The device
then levitates the wafer, spins it up
to speed, and sends a message back
that reports the position of where
the wafer is levitated and the speed
at which it spins — useful in rapid
thermal processing or RTP, where
wafers are levitated and rotated.
A very good rolling-element bear-
ing might provide precise repeatabil-
ity from wafer to wafer, but it cannot

Bearings in wafer processing

Magnetic bearings are already used in several kinds of wafer-processing
machinery. For example: In many semiconductor-process environments, a
chamber is filled with a process gas and some action is performed on wafers
in that gas. When the action is complete, a TMP pumps the process gas out
of the chamber in order to create a vacuum. When the process gas has been
removed, one of two things usually happens. Either a new process gas is intro-
duced to initiate further action on the wafer, or an inert gas is introduced and
the wafer is lifted out to make its way to another process. TMPs are all about  In this large-bore edge rotation
being able to pull gases out of fabrication chambers and thereby control the system, a magnetic bearing boosts
environment. precision and controllability. If a
Elsewhere, rapid thermal processing equipment performs an operation on system is rotating a wafer about a
silicon wafers similar to annealing a piece of metal. As a wafer moves through certain axis and engineers decide
a fabrication plant, various operations are performed on it, and at different that it is not the best axis of rota-
points on its trip, the wafer must be “annealed” just to normalize. Magnetic tion, they can instruct the device
bearings provide the active control necessary for RTP equipment to levitate via its controller to change the axis
with micron precision, through a
and rotate the rotor on which the wafer is mounted.
range of ±200 microns.
CMP (chemical mechanical planerization) slurry pumps function in a pro-
cess that polishes wafers. To give the wafers the necessary flat and planed
surface, it is essential to avoid contamination. To meet this need, one company detect and report wafer location like
builds small pumps with magnetic bearings that reduce the chance of con- magnetic bearings. This capability
tamination. The pumps do not contaminate the slurry (in essence, a cutting allows process engineers to leverage
fluid) that sands down the wafers — so the process does not contaminate the wafer-location information, because
wafers. if a designer knows the exact wafer
In another system, excimer laser blower assemblies, also called cross-flow
path and afterwards examines fin-
fans, circulate the gases inside excimer lasers, which are used in photolithog-
raphy processes. Lithography is one of the processes used for putting “lines”
ished wafers, he or she can observe
in a wafer. Here, the laser requires a fan to blow gases through it. The process process results and make adjust-
must be ultra clean with minimal vibration and high reliability (which are hall- ments as required. In other words,
marks of magnetic bearings.) In general, a higher-speed blower delivers faster equipment designers can character-
gas exchange and yields higher laser output. Designers currently competing ize the process, and slightly adjust
for excimer laser superiority are trying to make the next best laser, and that wafer position during the process to
usually means higher energy output. Gas must be ultra-clean inside a laser so refine results.
that it functions optimally, and new designs need gas to circulate faster. This The inherent control capabilities
calls for bearings that accommodate these higher speeds; all but magnetic of magnetic bearings make active
bearings are lubricated, and lubricant can contaminate the application.
control possible. Design engineers

22 FEBRUARY 2009 MOTION SYSTEM DESIGN • www.motionsystemdesign.com


can manage and tweak wafer posi-
tions when positioning is critical,
and manage vibration in situations
where that is important. Sometimes
devices actually levitate wafers (for
example, in RTP) and elsewhere,
where magnetic bearings simply
support auxiliary functions (as with
TMPs that never actually contact
wafers.) In either case, the system
detects vibration so that the control
system can eliminate it.
Devices employing magnetic
bearings deliver precision and ac-
tive control during both wafer ro-
tation and translation. If a system
is rotating a wafer about a certain
axis and engineers decide that it is
not the best axis of rotation, they can
instruct the device via its controller
to change the axis with micron pre-
cision, through a range of ±200 mi-
crons. In contrast, rolling-element
bearings can be designed for a pre-
cise axis of rotation, but once fixed,
FEBRUARY 2009
further refinements are not possible,
and there is no active control. Fur-
ther, if the axis changes over time
due to bearing wear or some other
condition, process personnel will
not detect the changes, except by
inspecting the finished wafers. With
magnetic bearings, one has the abil-
ity to actively set the rotational cen-
ter and actively correct it over time
or change it based on feedback from
the process.
Cleanliness is essential in the con-
trolled environment of wafer manu-
facturing because even a fingerprint
inside equipment can ruin a produc-
tion run. Rolling-element bearings
are relatively unclean, as they create
particles and must be lubricated. One
must electro-polish or clean them by
other methods. In addition, decreas-
ing lubrication to boost cleanliness
accelerates wear.
The exterior of a magnetic bear-
ing is a single piece of stainless steel.
With the rotating shaft suspended in
space, there is no metal-to-metal con-
tact. Consequently, magnetic bearings
require no lubrication and produce no
wear particles. That means they pro-
duce no outgassing from lubricants
and no particles to contaminate or
ruin sensitive wafers.
Future magnetic bearing
applications
Given the demands for cleanli-
ness, precise handling, and active
control in semiconductor fabrica-
tion, magnetic bearing use is on the
rise. Other uses for magnetic bear-
ings in the fabrication of semicon-
ductors are on the horizon: As wa-
fer production necessarily becomes
ever cleaner, as chip circuits become
smaller and more complex, and as
processes are refined and changed,
so will new applications for magnet-
ic bearings in silicon wafer manufac-
turing steadily emerge.
For example, physical vapor de-
position or PVD equipment applies
MOTION SYSTEM DESIGN • www.motionsystemdesign.com
ultra-thin coatings to wafers at nano-
meter thicknesses. As noted, speci-
fications for nanometer precision
require a particle-free environment
— and rolling-element bearings can
only be specified in measurements
from 0.3 to 3 microns, roughly 1,000
times larger than features measured
in nanometers. Concerns about par-
ticle contamination only increase
as wafer-feature sizes decrease and
chip complexity increases. As cir-
cuitry gets smaller, the particle size
and number of particles a process
can allow both decrease. So, for ex-
ample, if smart-phone developers
want phones to be half their pres-
ent size with twice the functionality,
then designers must squeeze much
more information onto an even
smaller chip. That is what drives
chip features smaller, and makes
particle control in wafer processing
loom larger.
Another example: Devices for
wafer lift and rotation are required
in ultra-clean processes other than
RTP. Knowing exactly where a wa-
fer is all the time is impossible with
rolling-element bearings, but it can
be achieved with magnetic bearings,
where the system can precisely mea-
sure and control the position of the
rotor on which the wafer is mounted.
This allows production personnel to
characterize a process and learn by
changing wafer orientation during
processing.
Finally: Compared to an ordinary
environment, CMP is quite clean.
Even so, CMP puts slurry on the
wafer that must be washed away. For
this reason, after CMP, wafers enter
spin-rinse dryers that spin wafers as
a rinse is applied, and then continue
spinning to dry the wafer. Magnetic
bearings in their spin rinse dryers
reduce particle contamination.
For more information, visit www.
skfmagneticbearings.com or call (403)
232 9264.
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