THE ECONOMICS OF METAL-ION IMPLANTATION

The development of the metal vapor vacuum arc (MEVVA(R)) ion source fo r direct metal ion implantation with its great throughput has dramatic ally reduced the cost to well below that of using a mass separated sys tem (which is of the order of $1-$10 per cm2 and has only been found a cceptable by the medical industry). In the light of this development, the economics of ion implantation are revisited and an assessment is p resented of the effect of the derived cost per unit area of implantati on, and on the markets which are thereby made available. Specifically, the production cost of implantation per square centimeter in current industrial units is $0.82, $0.12 and $0.03 for the MEVVA(R)IIC system and the 80-10 and 80-50 MEVVA(R)IV systems respectively. These units h ave ion beam currents of 1 mA, 10 mA and 50 mA. Extending the analysis to two types of metal ion implantation unit which are currently being built and developed respectively, it is found that the cost can be re duced to below $0.01 per cm2, a level which is cost competitive with o ther processes used by the automotive industry.