Future of Engineering

A small group of players in the lithography industry wants to avoid the whole problem of nanometer optical lithography by doing away with the optical part. Nano-imprint technology typically uses e-beam systems to create a mechanical template, not unlike the tools used to press CDs, but on a much finer scale. These folks make a template that is an exact 1:1 image of a resist pattern. They coat the wafer with a polymer, press the template into it, harden the polymer with either heat or UV light, and withdraw the template. Presto: a pattern in the polymer that can be used to mask portions of the wafer. Stepping and repeating creates a patterned polymer layer across an entire wafer.

In principle, the technique has a great future. It requires only inexpensive equipment, needs no DfM tools, OPC, phase-shifting patterns, or other adjustments to the mask to compensate for optical effects—what you see is actually what you get—and in the lab researchers have demonstrated forming features as small as 3 nm. But there have been disabling problems as well.

The chief among them being but many industry experts feel that these issues can be addressed, and to a great extent have been already.

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Labels: Design-Engineering