
Chuck Design. Solutions for High-Performance Applications.
Berliner Glas develops innovative chuck solutions for the most diverse and demanding processing steps in the semiconductor industry.
- Vacuum Chucks
- Electrostatic Chucks (ESCs)
For more information about our approach, our expertise and our new test center to shorten development cycles please click here.
Chuck Design
- Chucks for wafers up to 450 mm (18 inch)
- Chucks for reticles
- Customer-specific formats up to 400 x 500 mm²
- Single or double-sided clamps
- Exact temperatures up to small mK
- Integrated heating and cooling functions (options)
- Hybrid chucks (ESC & vacuum chuck combined)
- Wide range of functional surface coatings

Chuck design (ESC) with features
ESC specific:
- Coulomb type with up to 8 electrodes per side
- Single or multi-polar electrodes (mono- and bipolar systems)
Vacuum chuck specific:
- Up to 4 separate vacuum segments
- Supports both rotating as well as lateral platforms
Flatness
- Global flatness up to 100 nm PV (D=298 mm)
- Local flatness us to 10 nm PV (20x20 mm2)
- Specific flatness needs according to application possible

Global flatness < 100nm to 298mm
Shape Control
- Absorption of warped wafers
- Flatten warped wafers
- Controlled adjustment of wafer shapes
Clamping Pressure
Homogeneous clamping force over the entire clamp surface
- Up to 0.5 bar of clamping pressure for ESCs and up to 1 bar for vacuum chucks
- Time constants to hold and release smaller than 0.1 seconds
Material
Metal | Aluminium with coating |
---|---|
Ceramics | SiC, SiSiC AlN, Si3N4 Al2O3 Cordierit |
Glass & Glassceramics | Borosilicate Glass Quartz Glass ULE®, Zerodur® |
Metal | Ceramics | Glass & Glassceramics |
---|---|---|
Aluminium with coating | SiC, SiSiC AlN, Si3N4 Al2O3 Cordierit |
Borosilicate Glass Quartz Glass ULE®, Zerodur® |
- Chuck materials with silicon-adapted properties
- Materials with "zero expansion"
- Materials with high stiffness
- Materials with high thermal conductivity and abrasion resistance
- Combination of various materials to ensure the highest performance
- All materials satisfy the semiconductor standard

Electrostatic chuck made from glass and ceramic
Microstructure
Pin structures reduce the contact surface of the wafer to the chuck by a factor of 100 (1 % of contact surface)
- No sticking between wafer and chuck
- Very low particle sensitivity
- Pin size up to 300 µm in diameter

Pin structure of an electrostatic chuck
Testing & Qualification
In our laboratory, we qualify test parts as well as measurement and reference parts and conduct test series in order to guarantee successful volume production.
Possible qualifications:
- Flatness measurement using interferometer (up to 24 inches horizontal and 12 inches vertical beam path)
- Customer-specific software for a very accurate evaluation of flatness
- Electrical qualification in an application-oriented environment (high voltage test)
- Measurement of clamping force
- Residual gas analysis (RGA)
- Backside contamination analyses
- Flow-through tests for coolants and gas

Measurement on the interferometer
Contact our specialists
Please choose your contact partner:

Let us call you back!
Berliner Glas KGaA Herbert Kubatz GmbH & Co.
Waldkraiburger Straße 5
12347 Berlin, Germany
Fon +49 30 60 905-0
info [at] berlinerglas.de