EUV Resists Move Forward


Improvements in EUV exposure sources and exposure tools are shifting the industry’s focus to other components of the lithography process. As noted last year, one of the key areas is photoresists. But advanced photoresists face significant challenges, due to the need to balance sensitivity, etch selectivity, and resolution. This year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography conference featured promis... » read more

Timing Is Everything


It's easy to look back on companies or products that missed the market because they were too early. Remember the Eo? The brick-like personal digital assistant that AT&T introduced in 1993 had an antenna that hinted at 4G connectivity. Unfortunately, there was no 4G available at the time, so it was just an extra wire. (Check out the video of the tablet version here.) The EO 440 Personal... » read more

Multi-Beam Market Heats Up


The multi-beam e-beam mask writer business is heating up, as Intel and NuFlare have separately entered the emerging market. In one surprising move, [getentity id="22846" e_name="Intel"] is in the process of acquiring IMS Nanofabrication, a [gettech id="31058" t_name="multi-beam e-beam"] equipment vendor. And separately, e-beam giant NuFlare recently disclosed its new multi-beam mask writer t... » read more

Ready For Nanoimprint?


Nanoimprint has been discussed, debated, and hyped since the term was first introduced in 1996. Now, a full 20 years later, it is being taken much more seriously in light of increasing photomask costs and delays in bringing alternatives to market. Nanoimprint lithography is something like a room-temperature UV cure embossing process. The structures are patterned onto a template or mold using... » read more

Where Is Next-Gen Lithography?


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss lithography and photomask technologies with Greg McIntyre, director of the Advanced Patterning Department at [getentity id="22217" comment="Imec"]; Harry Levinson, senior fellow and senior director of technology research at [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"]; Uday Mitra, vice president and head of strategy and marketing for the Etch Bu... » read more

Insider’s Guide To Photomasks


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about photomasks and lithography with Franklin Kalk, executive vice president of technology at Toppan Photomasks, a merchant photomask supplier. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What’s hot in mask technology these days? Kalk: It’s everything from the bleeding-edge like EUV to much more mature manufacturing. On the mature si... » read more

7nm Lithography Choices


Chipmakers are ramping up their 16nm/14nm logic processes, with 10nm expected to move into early production later this year. Barring a major breakthrough in lithography, chipmakers are using today’s 193nm immersion and multiple patterning for both 16/14nm and 10nm. Now, chipmakers are focusing on the lithography options for 7nm. For this, they hope to use a combination of two technologies ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Is robotics the next big thing? IDC forecasts that global spending on robotics and related services will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17% from more than $71 billion in 2015 to $135.4 billion in 2019. "Robotics is one of the core technologies that is enabling significant change in manufacturing through factory of the future initiatives. While traditionally used in the automoti... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


The SPIE Advanced Lithography conference is next week. “The conference should provide an update on extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) sentiment from chipmakers such as Intel and TSMC, and we expect generally positive sentiment, which should be good for ASML. Still, high-volume adoption timing of EUV appears to be in the 2020 time frame, so it's very early in the process. We expect a lot of... » read more

1xnm DRAM Challenges


At a recent event, Samsung presented a paper that described how the company plans to extend today’s planar DRAMs down to 20nm and beyond. This is an amazing feat. Until very recently, most engineers believed DRAMs would stop scaling at 20nm or so. Instead, Samsung is ramping up the world’s most advanced DRAMs—a line of 20nm parts—with plans to go even further. Micron and SK Hynix soo... » read more

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