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ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 18 NO. 3
40
PRODUCT NEWS
Larry Wagner, LWSN Consulting Inc.
PRESS RELEASE SUBMISSIONS:
FEI LAUNCHES APREO HIGH-
PERFORMANCE SEM
FEI (Hillsboro, Ore.) announced the new Apreo
scanning electronmicroscope (SEM), offering an industry-
leading range of applications. Apreo offers exceptional
versatility infields ranging frommaterials and life sciences
to research in semiconductors, energy, and chemistry.
Researchers and developers must obtain as much
microscopic information as possible from their samples.
They want to be able to see materials contrast and deter-
mine the chemical or crystallographic properties of awide
range of samples, such as conductors, insulators, and
those that are magnetic- or beam-sensitive. Researchers
want to operate over a wide range of conditions, includ-
ing high or low vacuum and at different tilt angles. Apreo
provides this capability.
Due to its proprietary compound final lens design, the
Apreo SEM is capable of resolution down to 1.0 nmat 1 kV
without the need for beam deceleration, providing high
performance on nearly any sample, even if it is tilted or
topographic.
Trisha Rice, Vice President and General Manager
of FEI’s Materials Science Business, said, “Apreo was spe-
cifically designed to be the midrange SEM tool of choice.
Its feature set and ease of use should put it at the top of
the list for our research and industrial laboratory custom-
ers who require high performance, broad versatility, and
easy operation over awide range of applications for users
with varying levels of expertise.”
Apreo offers backscatter detection at the lowest beam
currents, at any tilt angle, on sensitive samples and at
TV-rate imaging, so materials contrast is strong. Detector
segments can be individually addressed, which allows
researchers to optimize for angular contrast or for signal
intensity and to extract the information thatmattersmost.
It provides a wide range of approaches for dealing with
insulating samples, including a low-vacuum capability
with a chamber pressure of up to 500 Pa. Finally, Apreo is
an excellent tool for analytics, with ports for up to three
energy-dispersive x-ray spectrometry (EDS) detectors,
coplanar EDS, and electron backscatter diffraction. It also
has analytics-compatible lowvacuumand beamcurrents
up to 400 nA.
The Apreo software provides user guidance and point-
and-click navigationusing an in-chamber camera, making
it easy for even novice users to obtain excellent results.
High-productivity labs will appreciate the capability to
load multiple samples quickly and easily without tools.
For more information: web: fei.com/apreo.
RENISHAW OFFERS CONFOCAL RAMAN
MICROSCOPE
The new inVia Qontor is the most advanced Raman
microscope offered by Renishaw (Gloucestershire, U.K.).
Building on the market-leading inVia Reflex, the inVia
FEI’s Apreo high-performance SEM
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