Tegal Corporation , a leading designer and manufacturer of plasma etch and deposition systems used in the production of MEMS, integrated circuits, and nanotechnology devices, announced today that the Company received an order for a Tegal 901ACS plasma etch tool, and additional orders for Tegal 900 Series ACS (Advanced Control System) upgrades, from a leading maker of BioMEMS-based medical testing products.  The Tegal 901ACS system will ship this quarter, and will join the customer’s existing Tegal 901 systems which, as part of this sales order package, will be upgraded by Tegal to Tegal Advanced Control System units.

 “Our customer considered the available options for control system upgrades to Tegal 900 Series plasma etch tools, and chose the Tegal Advanced Control System upgrade for their new, and legacy, Tegal 901 tools,” said John Almerico, Marketing Director, Etch Products, Tegal Corporation.  “The Tegal 901ACS value proposition, which includes robust, feature-rich control software, a touchscreen user interface, new standards for wafer transport accuracy and repeatability, and Tegal’s award-winning reputation for after-sales service and spare parts support, is resulting in more and more wins like this for Tegal, particularly in mission-critical applications like BioMEMS device manufacturing for the medical products market.”

The Tegal 901ACS is the latest in a series of capacitively coupled diode plasma etch systems produced by Tegal, the industry pioneer in commercial single-wafer plasma etching.  Over 1,500 systems in the 900 Series have been shipped to date, providing reliable and cost-effective support for a wide range of plasma etch processes.  The Tegal 900ACS Series is optimized for pad, zero layer, non-selective nitride, backside, and planarization etching, as well as for photoresist descum, oxide, nitride, poly, and compound materials applications for MEMS, HB-LED, TFH, and Optoelectronic device fabrication.The 900ACS and 980ACS Series platforms incorporate a production-proven transport system that can accommodate 75 mm to 200 mm round, square or rectangular substrates.

The ACS upgrade is available exclusively from Tegal as a field or factory retrofit for the existing installed base of Tegal 900 and 980 series systems. The ACS features a fully integrated graphical user interface, parametric data logging, full factory automation support, and throughput enhancements for the wafer-handling system. For information on the 900 series ACS upgrade package, please contact your local Tegal representative, or email info@tegal.com.

Tegal will be exhibiting at SEMICON West 2008, in San Francisco, CA, on 15, 16, and 17 July 2008.  Please visit us at the Moscone Center, South Hall, Booth #1921.