Owens Design Helps Qcept Technologies Ramp Up Production of Next-Generation Non-Visual Defect Inspection Tool

FREMONT, Calif., April 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Owens Design Inc. today announced that it is collaborating with Qcept Technologies Inc. (Atlanta, Ga.) to ramp production of Qcept's latest-generation non-visual defect (NVD) inspection system—the ChemetriQ® 5000.  Qcept is the leading provider of wafer inspection solutions for NVD detection in advanced semiconductor manufacturing. In addition to providing manufacturing services for Qcept, Owens Design, a leading capital equipment design and manufacturing service provider to the semiconductor, data storage and solar capital equipment markets, also collaborated with Qcept during the development phase of the ChemetriQ 5000, which was introduced in July 2010.  

Owens Design offers semiconductor capital equipment manufacturers a proven methodology to reduce tool development costs, minimize technical risk, and speed their time to market. By working closely with an established design and manufacturing company, a capital equipment company can focus its internal efforts on its core technology.  In turn, the design and manufacturing services company can focus on integrating this new core technology into a system level platform that has been optimized to meet the equipment manufacturer's performance specifications.

"Our collaboration with Owens Design has enabled Qcept to focus its resources on developing and refining the inspection technology at the core of our latest-generation ChemetriQ platform. This collaboration enabled us to speed the development and time to market of the platform," said Bret Bergman, Qcept's CEO. "The ability to then quickly ramp our production capabilities for the ChemetriQ 5000 series has helped us to meet the growing demand for our products from leading semiconductor manufacturers."

The ChemetriQ 5000 platform provides rapid, full-wafer, inline detection of non-visual defects (NVDs) caused by sub-optimal cleans – such as organic and inorganic residues, metallic contaminants and process-induced charging – which can lead to significant yield loss and are undetectable by optical inspection systems.  It accomplishes this by employing an innovative, non-destructive technology that detects work function variations on the wafer surface.  Enhanced detection algorithms and tighter positional accuracy further augment the performance of the ChemetriQ 5000 to capture a variety of NVDs on both patterned and unpatterned wafers.

Two of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers, which are headquartered in Asia, purchased and installed ChemetriQ 5000 systems for advanced memory and logic production.  Owens Design played a key role in enabling Qcept to quickly manufacture multiple ChemetriQ 5000 tools in order to fulfill these orders.

"These recent tool of record wins by Qcept truly highlights the benefits of collaborating on capital tool development and manufacturing with Owens Design," said John Apgar, Owens Design's president.  "During the development process, Qcept's engineers were able to focus on the tool's core inspection and sensor technology, while we at Owens focused on system level platform issues and ensuring that the tool was ready for a volume production environment, enabling a fast ramp to meet customer demand. By working with Owens Design, Qcept was able to minimize overall risks and reduce the time involved in ramping to higher production levels."

About Owens Design

Owens Design specializes in engineering and manufacturing of capital equipment. Located in Silicon Valley for over 24 years, they have been a strategic partner in the co-creation and manufacturing process for many leading OEM capital equipment companies. Owens Design engineers and manufactures customer's products from concept, through alpha, beta, pilot and on-going production. Their development process results in a rapid design cycle and concurrent manufacturing introduction.  Owens Design has been an innovative and reliable partner for equipment companies in the semiconductor, solar and related industries.

About Qcept Technologies Inc.

Qcept Technologies delivers wafer inspection solutions for non-visual defect (NVD) detection in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.  Qcept's ChemetriQ® platform is being adopted in critical processes for inline, non-contact, full-wafer detection of such NVDs as sub-monolayer organic and metallic residues, process-induced charging, and other undesired surface non-uniformities that cannot be detected by conventional optical inspection equipment.  More information can be found at www.qceptech.com.

ChemetriQ is a registered trademark of Qcept Technologies Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For more information, please contact www.owensdesign.com

SOURCE Owens Design Inc.