Applied Materials Unveils Deposition and Selective Etch Systems to Advance 3D Chip Scaling - GlobeNewswire

Applied Materials unveiled two new chipmaking systems—Centris™ Spectral™ SiN ALD and Producer™ Selectra™ Mo Etch—to address critical challenges in advanced 3D semiconductor manufacturing. As the indus... Read original →

Applied Materials’ new SiN ALD and Mo selective etch platforms directly tackle the high-aspect-ratio bottlenecks in 3D chip stacking. Technologically, this accelerates GAA transistor ramp at sub-3nm nodes and boosts wafer yields for AI chipmakers relying on foundries in Taiwan, China. From a compliance standpoint, tighter U.S. export controls on advanced deposition/etch tools could soon classify these systems as restricted, forcing non-U.S. customers to front-load alternative sourcing and inflate capex. Competitively, Lam Research and Tokyo Electron will likely fast-track integration of their own selective etch and ALD capabilities—especially for metal gates and interconnects—to counter this move. Over the next 12–24 months, we’ll see a paradigm shift toward 'materials-defined devices,' where chip performance hinges less on circuit design and more on atomic-scale engineering at the equipment level, fundamentally elevating semiconductor toolmakers’ strategic leverage in the supply chain.