ASM Launches Vertos™ Flowable Carbon for Next-Gen Semiconductor Patterning

Almere, the Netherlands, September 22, 2026, ASM, a materials discovery company and global leader in semiconductor wafer processing equipment, has launched a groundbreaking technology called XP8® Vertos™ Flowable Carbon. This innovation, developed on the company’s expertise in atomic layer deposition and epitaxy, marks a significant step forward in semiconductor scaling.

Vertos™ Flowable Carbon is the market's first plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) flowable carbon film, designed to address the limitations of conventional carbon films in modern 3D device architectures. The technology combines gap fill and planarization in a single PECVD process, reducing process complexity and improving topography control. It is particularly suited for high-volume manufacturing and can be applied across both logic and memory devices.

The semiconductor market is projected to reach $1.5 trillion in 2026, driven by the AI hypercycle and accelerating compute demand. Chipmakers are scaling devices into increasingly complex 3D architectures, creating the need for new materials and process approaches to sustain performance gains. Materials innovation is now as critical as architectural design in enabling this progress.

The new technology operates within an all-in-one PECVD system, eliminating the need for downstream chemical mechanical planarization or etch-back steps. This reduces both cost and defect risk in manufacturing. Unique film properties include improved planarization across substrates with diverse pattern density, increased thermal stability, and area selective deposition characteristics. This combination makes Vertos™ Flowable Carbon a scalable approach to patterning across current and future technology nodes.

As logic and memory scaling advances into complex 3D architectures, integration schemes that depend on multi-step fill, planarization, and patterning sequences increase risks to both yield and throughput. Vertos™ Flowable Carbon consolidates those critical patterning steps into a single platform, simplifying integration and reducing the number of process cycles required to achieve topography control.

For more than two decades, chipmakers have relied on conventional carbon films not designed for the demands of modern 3D device architectures, which are reaching their limits in gap fill performance, topography control, and patterning fidelity. Vertos™ Flowable Carbon addresses these challenges by providing a purpose-built patterning solution for the complexity of next-generation devices.

The technology delivers a flat, uniform surface ready for the next patterning step. Vertos™ Flowable Carbon fills even the most complex high-aspect-ratio features without voids or seams and self-planarizes across the wafer. The process operates within an all-in-one PECVD system, eliminating the need for downstream chemical mechanical planarization or etch-back steps, reducing both cost and defect risk in manufacturing.