An increasing number of “high-tech” applications require thin film layers that provide performance improvements including: 

• Lower resistance for electrical contacts and conductors 
• Improved filling of high aspect ratio features, such as trenches, enabling smaller and faster semiconductor devices
• Defect-free barrier layers preventing damage from moisture, corrosion and other contaminants

Demaray’s core technology—known as Biased Pulsed Direct Current (BPDC) Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD)—uses a novel combination of direct current (DC) and radio frequency (RF) power together with protective filtering in a PVD chamber.  Demaray’s technology produces thin films with unique and, in many applications, otherwise unobtainable properties, providing performance, yield and reliability that cannot be attained from other processes.  More details about Demaray’s BPDC PVD technology can be found in U.S. Patent numbers 7,544,276 and 7,381,657.  

These patents were awarded by the U.S. Patent Office after an exceedingly thorough examination during which the patent examiners considered more than 500 pieces of “prior art” work by others – dozens of times more prior art than is evaluated during an average patent application review.  Years later, Samsung (one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world) and Applied Materials (the largest supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in the world), filed “inter partes review” proceedings through which they challenged the validity of Demaray’s already-issued patents, causing the U.S. Patent Office to consider the validity of the patents in view of still further “prior art” references.  Once again, the Patent Office sided with Demaray, rejecting the arguments advanced by Samsung and Applied Materials and reaffirming the validity of each and every challenged claim in both of Demaray’s patents.

Demaray’s BPDC PVD technology can be used to deposit thin films with a combination of properties:

• Able to fill narrow and deep trenches and coat extremely small and/or high aspect ratio physical features
• Contiguous – no gaps or breaks
• Fully-dense – no voids or atomic-level vacancies
• Defect-free – no holes or perforations
• Specific Crystal Structure – a particular orientation of the crystal lattice
• Amorphous – no crystal structure, no grain boundaries (where failures can start) or no regular order

Together these features enable products and performance that would not otherwise be possible, including in semiconductor applications where Demaray’s patented technology can significantly improve the speed of chips that are priced and sold in significant part based on how quickly they operate.