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At the SEMICON West 2008 show in San Francisco, CA, USA (15-17 July), PANalytical of Almelo, The Netherlands will debut a new release of its proven x-ray fluorescence (XRF) software for analysing the thickness and composition of thin films.

The new SuperQ 4.0 Thin Film package features updated Fundamental Parameter Software (FP Multi) for the analysis of complex multi-layer stacks, with best-in-class performance on up to 16 layers, it is claimed. It is also now possible to measure and track wafers throughout various deposition steps, until a film stack is completed. For each measurement, the results of the previous steps are taken into account, delivering rapid and automatic verification of layer and stack thickness and composition across the complete wafer. The software makes it easy for relatively inexperienced staff to run day-to-day analysis, while delivering powerful data on thickness, composition, stoichiometry, dopant levels and uniformity for a wide range of layer types and stacks.

For R&D and process control in the manufacture of solar cells (including those based on III-V materials), PANalytical offers X’Pert PRO MRD and X’Pert PRO MRD XL x-ray diffraction (XRD) systems. Their unique Prefix modules allow reconfiguration without the need for extensive alignment. The firm says that its X’Pert PRO systems are suited to studying a wide range of parameters including film thickness, roughness and density, texture in films, and thin-film stress. Depth-resolved phase analysis of layer stacks, precise measurement of lattice parameters and assessment of epilayer strain, composition and relaxation are also common applications. Crystallite size and porosity can be analyzed too.

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