The Export of Goods (Control) Order 1994

Equipment, Assemblies and Components

3B  Test, Inspection and Production Equipment

3B Equipment for the manufacture or testing of semiconductor devices or materials, as follows, and specially designed components and accessories therefor:

3B001 Stored programme controlled equipment for epitaxial growth, as follows:

a. Capable of producing a layer thickness uniform to less than ± 2.5% across a distance of 75 mm or more;

b. Metal organic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) reactors specially designed for compound semiconductor crystal growth by the chemical reaction between materials specified in entries 3C003 or 3C004;

c. Molecular beam epitaxial growth equipment using gas sources.

3B002 Stored programme controlled equipment designed for ion implantation, having any of the following:

a. An accelerating voltage exceeding 200 keV;

b. Specially designed and optimized to operate at an accelerating voltage of less than 10 keV;

c. Direct write capability; or

d. Capable of high energy oxygen implant into a heated semiconductor material substrate.

3B003 Stored programme controlled anisotropic plasma dry etching equipment, as follows:

a. With cassette-to-cassette operation and load-locks, and having either of the following:

1. Magnetic confinement; or

2. Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR);

b. Specially designed for equipment specified in entry 3B005 and having either of the following:

1. Magnetic confinement; or

2. Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR).

3B004 Stored programme controlled plasma enhanced CVD equipment, as follows:

a. With cassette-to-cassette operation and load-locks, and having either of the following:

1. Magnetic confinement; or

2. Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR);

b. Specially designed for equipment specified in entry 3B005 and having either of the following:

1. Magnetic confinement; or

2. Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR).

3B005 Stored programme controlled automatic loading multi-chamber central wafer handling systems, having interfaces for wafer input and output, to which more than two pieces of semiconductor processing equipment are to be connected, to form an integrated system in a vacuum environment for sequential multiple wafer processing.

• Note: This entry does not specify automatic robotic wafer handling systems not designed to operate in a vacuum environment.

3B006 Stored programme controlled lithography equipment, as follows:

a. Align and expose step and repeat equipment for wafer processing using photo-optical or X-ray methods, having either of the following:

1. A light source wavelength shorter than 400 nm; or

2. Capable of producing a pattern with a minimum resolvable feature size of 0.7 micrometre or less when calculated by the following formula:

where:

• “MRF” means the minimum resolvable feature size;

• the “K factor” = 0.7; and

• “wavelength” means the exposure light source wavelength;

b. Equipment specially designed for mask making or semiconductor device processing using deflected focussed electron beam, ion beam or laser beam, with any of the following:

1. A spot size smaller than 0.2 micrometre;

2. Capable of producing a pattern with a feature size of less than 1 micrometre; or

3. An overlay accuracy of better than ± 0.20 micrometre (3 sigma).

3B007 Masks or reticles, as follows:

a. For integrated circuits specified in entry 3A001;

b. Multi-layer masks with a phase shift layer.

3B008 Stored programme controlled test equipment, specially designed for testing semiconductor devices and unencapsulated dice, as follows:

a. For testing S-parameters of transistor devices at frequencies exceeding 31 GHz;

b. For testing integrated circuits, and capable of performing functional (truth table) testing at a pattern rate of more than 40 MHz;

• Note: Head b. of this entry does not specify test equipment specially designed for testing:

1. Electronic assemblies or a class of electronic assemblies for home or entertainment applications;

2. Electronic components, electronic assemblies or integrated circuits not specified in this Group.

c. For testing microwave integrated circuits at frequencies exceeding 3 GHz;

• Note: Head c. of this entry does not specify test equipment specially designed for testing microwave integrated circuits for equipment designed or rated to operate in the Standard Civil Telecommunication Bands at frequencies not exceeding 31 GHz.

d. Electron beam systems designed for operation at or below 3 keV, or laser beam systems, for the non-contactive probing of powered-up semiconductor devices, with both of the following:

1. Stroboscopic capability with either beam-blanking or detector strobing; and

2. An electron spectrometer for voltage measurement with a resolution of less than 0.5 V.

• Note: Head d. of this entry does not specify scanning electron microscopes; except: when specially designed and instrumented for the non-contactive probing of powered-up semiconductor devices.