Bigger Shifts Ahead


At 130nm the manufacturing portion of the semiconductor industry struggled with copper interconnects, 300mm wafers and immersion lithography. At 20nm and 14nm it will have to grapple with double, triple and possibly even quadruple patterning, new gate structures, the usual increases in process variation, far more expensive designs, complex challenges in attaining reasonable yields and in connec... » read more

Directed Self Assembly – record breaking small features


By Michael P.C. Watts Directed Self Assembly (DSA) was the breakout subject at this year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference. This conference is the biggest annual get together for lithography nerds, and I use it to keep up with the latest academic and industrial trends. Anyone who is anyone seems to be evaluating DSA. On a personal note, as it turns out, I did my PhD in block copolymer... » read more

AL 2012 – Day 3


I continue to focus on line-edge roughness in my own research.  This means that I attended papers in every conference in the symposium, since LER is an issue that cuts across all topics in lithography.  (To be truthful, I meant to go to a paper in the new etch conference that talked about LER, but never made it.)  LER is finally, in my opinion, getting the attention it deserves.  I believe,... » read more

Newer posts →