SPIE Advanced Lithography 2011 showed few new tools or techniques, but many new materials and integration tricks to extend 193i into double-patterning for IC HVM, while EUV and DSA developments continue according to expert Dr. M. David Levenson of BetaSights.
Direct-write, maskless, lithography using e-beams is not ready for 22nm node IC manufacturing, and the SPIE BACUS presentations show EbDW issues include data transfer and inspection.
E-beam Initiative adds four members and starts on Design for E-beam (DFEB) for mask makng for ICs to reduce mask costs at 22nm and below.
Post-optical lithography (NGL) technologies EUV (EUVL), e-beam direct-write (EbDW), and nano-imprint (NIL) all need work as shown at SEMICON/West 2010, major costs limitations.
The 2010 SPIE Advanced Lithography conference is where we first get glimpses of the future of nano-scale patterning technology for manufacturing. Sometimes, many fuzzy blobs come into focus as a picture in a single moment, and Yan Borodovsky of Intel showed how to do 22nm node litho the day before SPIE officially started. At both […]
Another back-to-the-future possibility for next-generation lithography (NGL) is direct write e-beam (DWEB), revitalized with multibeam clusters, curvilinear mask writing, and character projection (CP). The E-beam Initiative used the recent SPIE gathering to announce that it had added six new member companies, including GlobalFoundries and Samsung. Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S and Managing Director of the […]
This year’s plenary sessions of the SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium exposed the complexities of patterning ICs in high-volume manufacturing (HVM) at the 22nm node and beyond. Steppers using 193nm ArF immersion (193i) will be extended using double-patterning (DP) schemes, since the extreme-ultra-violet litho (EUVL) infrastructure is again delayed. R&D to support DP integration has led […]
While EUV Lithography may now be inevitable, according to SEMATECH Program Manager Bryan Rice, it may not be indispensable. SEMICON West offered a snapshot of progress towards the 32nm, 22nm, and 16nm device nodes at the Device Scaling TechXPOT, and the industry appears to have patterning options even if EUV encounters further delay. Yan Borodovsky […]
Electron beam direct write (EBDW) lithography is well-developed and has better potential resolution than any other method, but writing speeds did not keep up with Moore’s law after about 1980, leading to abysmal throughput (measured in hours per wafer). Now, the e-Beam Initiative focusing on design for e-beam manufacturing (DFEB) and multibeam writing using MEMS […]