Every layer added to a stacked device multiplies the cost of an imperfect fill, and chipmakers have answered with a multi-step routine: deposit carbon, flatten the surface, then pattern. ASM says it can collapse that sequence into one pass.
The new XP8 Vertos Flowable Carbon is a plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition film that flows into 3D gaps and self-levels the surface above them. Fewer cycles means lower cost per wafer and tighter command of the topography that later patterning steps depend on. Conventional carbon films were designed before stacked architectures took over, and ASM argues they are running out of room on gap fill and fidelity.
ASM says the film is already running in high-volume manufacturing, for logic and memory devices alike. It also carries the company beyond its core atomic layer deposition and epitaxy franchises into patterning, where deposition control has become the binding constraint for 3D NAND, DRAM and gate-all-around logic alike.
