Finnish company Picosun is the world's leading manufacturer of ALD systems and technology. Mectalent manufactures Picosun’s systems and platforms according to strict requirements.
Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is an advanced thin film coating method which is used to fabricate ultra-thin, highly uniform, and conformal material layers.
ALD is the only method that can be used to fabricate functional material layers on a nanometer scale so that the coating properties are suitable for the requirements of microelectronics. In other words, ALD enables modern mobile communication devices and increasingly compact and efficient computers.
Picosun's customers, especially in the semiconductor industry, set high quality standards for ADL coating equipment. They must be leak-proof and clean, i.e. the particle level of the equipment must not become too high at any stage of its life cycle.
The parts of ADL systems are large for orbital welding, which makes manufacturing more challenging.
According to Picanaun's Executive Vice President Juhana Kostamo, Mectalent has responded well to these challenges: "Mectalent has been a good partner in developing orbital welding of large parts."
In addition, Mectalent has invested in its own ISO8 / GMP Class D clean rooms, which Kostamo says is a great advantage for Picosun. “Particularly significant was that Mectalent was willing to invest in testing ADL systems on their own premises. That's good customer service for us.”
The quality of production and the expertise of the staff are especially evident in the stability of the manufacturing process.
“Mectalent is able to produce a copy exact, exactly the same product for us, which is the requirement from our customers. In other words, the products must not change unless customers are specifically asked for a permission to make small changes.” Kostamo states.
Mectalent and Picosun have been working together for a long time to develop the manufacturing process. The cooperation has already progressed so far that the ADL systems are tested and shipped directly to customers from the Mectalent plant.
Mectalent's ability to functionally test ALD systems in Oulu has freed up Picosun's resources for other projects. According to Kostamo, this is rare on a Finnish scale and he considers it very significant. "The investment in quality, staff training, and production capacity deserves big thanks from us."
Picosun is a global company based in Espoo, Finland. The company has subsidiaries in Germany, USA, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan, offices in India and France, and a global sales and support network with distributors and representatives in over 30 countries. Picosun is part of Applied Materials, Inc.
Today, PICOSUN® ALD tools are in daily production use at several leading industries from the largest manufacturers to small challengers, and high-level research organizations across the world.