Business Idea
Magnetron Sputtering in Semiconductor Device Manufacturing
Technology

Magnetron Sputtering in Semiconductor Device Manufacturing

10 min read

Magnetron sputtering is a technology for applying thin films to the substrate of semiconductor heteroepitaxial structures using target evaporation in magnetron discharge plasma. We will talk about them in today’s material. 

Method

The method is based on cathode sputtering of the target with ions of the working gas, such as argon or nitrogen. The discharge in the magnetron sputtering system burns in non-uniform crossed electric and magnetic fields localized at the surface of the target being sputtered. For effective discharge burning, it is necessary to create a magnetic field of 0.03 to 0.1 T. The thickness of the coatings can be from several nanometers to several tens of microns. For sputtering alloyed layers, either cathodes doped with the required element or composite cathodes are used.

Magnetron sputtering is widely used in industry. Examples include transparent conductive electrode coatings for creating device structures of photodetectors (solar cells, photodiodes, detectors), as well as other optoelectronic devices.

The following market segmentation by technology types is popular:

  1. DC Magnetron Sputtering,
  2. RF Magnetron Sputtering,
  3. Pulsed Magnetron Sputtering,
  4. High-Rate Magnetron Sputtering,
  5. Reactive Magnetron Sputtering.

The marketing study Magnetron Sputtering Systems Market Size, Market Share, Application Analysis, Regional Outlook, Growth Trends, Key Players, Competitive Strategies and Forecasts- 2023 to 2031 states that the global magnetron sputtering systems market was valued at $2.51 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach over $4.06 billion in 2030, growing at a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period. 

The large number of sputtering applications in the electronics segment such as gate dielectric, printed circuit boards, sensors, surface acoustic wave SAW and spectroscopy, laser lenses, anti-reflective coatings, etc. and in the optics segment contribute to the electronics and optics segment capturing the major market share during the forecast period. 

In addition, magnetron sputtering systems are widely used in the automotive, mechanical engineering, biomedical and metallurgical industries. In the biomedical industry, magnetron technology is used, in particular, to manufacture angioplasty devices, radiation capsules, dental implants, etc. In addition, in the automotive and mechanical engineering industries, magnetron sputtering is used to apply thin films to metals to improve their efficiency. The main global players are Buhler AG, Denton Vacuum, Torr International Inc., Moorfield Nanotechnology Limited, Angstrom Engineering Inc., Ulvac, Inc., Prevac SP. Z OO, PVD Products, Inc., AJA International, Inc., Semicore Equipment, Inc.

In this article we are only interested in the patent aspect.

Patent aspect 

On the Google.Patents portal, a search for magnetron sputtering returns more than 100,000 documents. The following companies are listed as leaders in the number of patents:

  1. Applied Materials, Inc. — 3.1%;
  2. Ningbo Material Technology And Engineering Institute - 1.4%;
  3. Varian Associates, Inc. - 0.9%;
  4. Vac-Tec Systems, Inc. - 0.9%;
  5. Materials Research Corporation - 0.8%.

Champion Applied Materials, Inc. holds 3.1% of patents, with the next few holding even less; that is, there is no oligopoly, much less a monopoly, in invention in this area.

Since we are particularly interested in semiconductor devices, we conducted a special search for magnetron sputtering H01L; Google.Patents returns 11,578 documents. The dynamics by year are shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1: Dynamics of global patenting of inventions on the topic of “magnetron sputtering H01L”

Source: Author’s interpretation of Google.Patents data 01/26/2025

It is evident that the pace of patenting inventions has been plateauing over the last 10 years. The leaders in patenting by the total number of patents are:

  1. Xidian University - 3.1%;
  2. Applied Materials, Inc. — 2.2%;
  3. Tsinghua University - 2.1%;
  4. Boe Technology Group Co., Ltd. — 2%;
  5. South China University of Technology - 1.6%.

As you can see, the overwhelming majority of world patents belong to Chinese universities and companies:

Examples of patents:

What about Russia? 

In the FIPS database, 139 patents for inventions were found in abstracts for the query magnetron sputtering, of which 60 units are valid. At the same time, under section H01L, only 13 are valid, issued in the period 2011-2023. The search engine “Yandex. Patent” for the query magnetron sputtering indicated 2230 patents, while under section H01L it issued 487 documents for the period since 1980. Let us remind you that “Yandex. Patent” selects all patents of the Russian Federation, both for inventions and for utility models, where the requested term is indicated in the patent body, including as a cited prototype and a rejected version. That is, the FIPS database is narrowed, since it selects the target term from abstracts, and Yandex’s AI is redundant, since it takes everything.

A substantive analysis of current Russian patents for inventions, conducted by Online Patent experts at the end of January 2025, showed the following:

In manufacturing and related enterprises, inventions are of a special, narrowly applied nature, for example: 

There is high activity in patenting specialized universities, which indirectly indicates the presence of significant reserves of young specialists. For example:

Small innovative enterprises have many patents. For example: 

Comparatively (for example, with patents for 6th generation mobile communications) there are few patents from non-residents: Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. (JP) 2,799,886 and Tokemek Energy Ltd. (GB) 2,745,295.
 

The comparatively large number of Russian patents on magnetron sputtering of metals is striking; here are some:

Utility models usually repeat Russian inventions. Examples:

There are three databases:

There are also three computer programs:

Conclusion

Magnetron sputtering technologies have found wide and stable application in the production of micro- and nanoelectronics, including in Russia. They complement other technologies, in particular laser ablation, liquid-phase epitaxy, plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), vacuum arc deposition, physical laser deposition (PLD), molecular beam epitaxy, ion-beam deposition. 

Some Russian enterprises, for example, JSC Research and Production Enterprise Istok named after A.I. Shokin, JSC Silicon El Group, JSC Angstrem, JSC Russian Corporation of Rocket and Space Instrument-making and Information Systems, JSC Concern Sozvezdie, JSC NPO Orion, V.G. Mokerov Institute of Microwave Semiconductor Electronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Scientific and Technological Center for Microelectronics and Submicron Heterostructures of the Russian Academy of Sciences, possess several technologies (from three to twelve to fifteen) and flexibly apply them for various special purposes in the manufacture of semiconductor products. 

The patent situation in the Russian Federation with magnetron technologies is not bad, numerous competencies of different institutions and organizations, as well as individuals, are observed. At the same time, the disadvantages of the magnetron sputtering method are well known and understood, such as: high energy intensity of the process (about 500 eV per atom) and the impossibility of applying uniformly thick coatings to parts of complex shape.