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CARE-TEC® System

A novel electrochemical CMP system uniquely designed to improve surface smoothness while significantly reducing surface and sub-surface defects on 150- and 200-mm SiC (and GaN) substrates during final polish.

Key Benefits

0.5 nm

Final surface roughness of 0.5 nm or lower.

90%

Up to 90% lower surface and sub-surface defects after removing only 100 nm of SiC from the surface.

70%

Up to 70% improvement in gate leakage current in Schottky Barrier Diodes.

100×

Two orders of magnitude increase in time-dependent dielectric breakdown in MOS capacitors.

No Slurry

No slurry – The process uses pH-adjusted water.

No Conditioning

No pad conditioning or brushing.

Technology

CARE-TEC® stands for “CAtalyst-Referred Etching Technology”. It replaces the final CMP buff step. The technology was invented by Prof. Yamauchi of Osaka University and licensed exclusively to Toho (Araca’s largest strategic investor) for manufacture and sales.

Our eco-friendly system employs a polymeric pad onto which a catalytic platinum or ruthenium film is sputtered. With just pH-adjusted water as the slurry substitute, an electric potential is applied to the SiC substrate and the pad. The principal mechanism of polishing SiC (as well as GaN) can be described by the reactions below, where material is continuously etched away by catalytically converting the top layers of the SiC to monolayers of silicon dioxide, which are then removed via polishing at moderate pressures:

SiC SiC + 8H+ + 4H2O → SiO2 + CO2 + 8H+
GaN GaN + 6H+ + 3H2O → Ga2O3 + N2 + 6H+

Hardware

CARE-TEC® is single-platen with two independent heads (for 150- or 200-mm wafers), a robotic wafer-handling arm, and an integrated substrate-cleaning module. Demos are available in Toho’s brand-new Class 10 cleanroom in Yokkaichi (JP) as we have full access to multiple CARE-TEC® systems and their top-notch metrology equipment for determining crystalline structure, metal contamination, defect levels, and the nano-roughness. In 3Q26, we will have our own system in a brand-new Class 100 cleanroom in the US.

CARE-TEC 200mm system — dual polishing heads and platen
CARE-TEC 200mm system — polishing heads close-up

Sales and Warranty

Manufactured by Toho in Yokkaichi (JP), CARE-TEC® is sold Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) and supported by Araca in North America, Europe and the Middle East. The system is warrantied for one year (parts and labor). Extended warranties are available for sale.

Resources

CARE-TEC® 150-mm System in Operation YouTube CARE-TEC® 200-mm System in Operation YouTube
Get Started

Interested in CARE-TEC®?

Contact us to schedule a demonstration at Toho’s state-of-the-art cleanroom in Yokkaichi (JP). We can also discuss your specific SiC or GaN polishing requirements and how CARE-TEC® may improve your surface quality and device performance.

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