Wafer fabrication equipment giant Applied Materials has acquired Picosun, a Finnish pioneer in atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology that is used in the manufacture of chips ranging from logic and memory to LEDs, and micromechanical MEMS devices, and power chips. The company has raised $17.4 million to date but did not disclose the value of the deal with Applied Materials.
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According to eeNews, ALD has become a key process technology in the manufacture of logic devices. Since its first use in commercial manufacturing at 45nm, reliance on ALD has expanded to today’s 10nm node and beyond. The 22nm node typically has 10+ ALD steps, while the 10nm node has about 70 ALD steps and is used for high-K dielectrics such as HfOx and AlOx, gate metal layers such as TiN and TaN, etch stop layers, pads and spacers layers such as SiOx and SiNx.
Picosun is expected to be part of the Applied Materials ICAPS (Internet of Things, Communications, Automotive, Power and Sensors) group, which provides materials engineering systems. Picosun also has strong R&D capabilities, excellent teams, and strong relationships with leading research institutes and universities around the world.
“Picosun is a pioneer in ALD technology with products serving the fast-growing specialty foundry logic market,” said Gary Dickerson, President, and CEO of Applied Materials. “The addition of Picosun complements Applied’s technology portfolio and expands our accelerated customer roadmap. Opportunity.”
“The rapid growth in the number of connected devices has fueled a huge demand for chip innovation to connect the analog and digital worlds,” said Sundar Ramamurthy, Group Vice President of Applied Materials and General Manager of the ICAPS Group. “Bringing Picosun’s talented team to Applied Materials will strengthen our ability to help customers add more intelligence and functionality to a variety of edge computing devices.”
