Settings

ⓕ font-size

  • -2
  • -1
  • 0
  • +1
  • +2

Applied Materials unveils new chip-making equipment

  • Facebook share button
  • Twitter share button
  • Kakao share button
  • Mail share button
  • Link share button
Choi Bum-jin, director of process support engineering at Applied Materials Korea, speaks during a press conference at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas hotel, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Applied Materials Korea
Choi Bum-jin, director of process support engineering at Applied Materials Korea, speaks during a press conference at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas hotel, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Applied Materials Korea

By Baek Byung-yeul

Applied Materials unveiled new systems for the mass-production of next-generation memory chips used for internet of things (IoT) and cloud computing, Wednesday.

"The time has arrived for the industry to move on to the next-generation chips," said Choi Bum-jin, director of process support engineering at Applied Materials Korea, during a press conference at the Grand InterContinental Seoul hotel.

"On the occasion of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we have seen an explosive growth in many ICT sectors such as cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), IoT and self-driving cars. Due to the development, there has been growing demand for semiconductor chips that have much better performance as well."

Choi said this is why the U.S.-based chip-making equipment supplier launched new machines to help makers produce next-generation semiconductor chips such as magnetic RAM (MRAM), phase change RAM (PCRAM) and resistive RAM (ReRAM) more stably.

MRAM is able to store memory in a denser manner. ReRAM is known to store twice as much data and use less energy than flash memory, while PCRAM has advantages in storing high data volumes.

"Those semiconductor chips were considered to have difficulties in mass production due to manufacturing challenges with complex materials but the company's Endura Clover MRAM physical vapor deposition (PVD) platform and the Endura Impulse PVD platform have enabled chip makers to mass produce next-generation chips," Choi said.

Though he cannot reveal which companies are using the equipment, Choi said five semiconductor makers are employing its Endura Clover MRAM PVD to produce MRAM and eight companies are using the Endura Impulse PVD to fabricate PCRAM and ReRAM.

When asked what Applied Materials thinks of the trade dispute between Japan and Korea, Park Hak-nae, who is responsible for the strategic technical marketing of the firm's Korean unit, said he was not allowed to comment on the operation of customer companies.

However, he said: "Applied Materials has been closely cooperating with Korean semiconductor companies because they have the world's best technological capabilities."


Baek Byung-yeul baekby@koreatimes.co.kr


X
CLOSE

Top 10 Stories

go top LETTER