tag: photomasks

Photomask Japan 2025: A Strong Signal For The Future Of Our Industry
By Leo Pang - 02 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

Photomask Japan (PMJ) 2025 was, without a doubt, the most exciting edition I’ve attended in recent years. From a surge in attendance to a packed agenda full of technical depth and forward-looking insights, this year’s event reflected the growing momentum and innovation across the photomask and eBeam ecosystem. Let’s start with the numbers—624 attendees. That’s a significant jump fr... » read more

Mask Complexity, Cost, And Change
By Gregory Haley - 22 May, 2025 - Comments: 0

Experts at the Table: As leading-edge lithography nodes push further into EUV and beyond, mask-making has become one of the most critical and costly aspects of semiconductor manufacturing. At the same time, non-EUV applications are stretching the lifetime of older tools and processes, challenging the industry to find new solutions for both ends of the spectrum. Semiconductor Engineering sat dow... » read more

Three Ways Curvy ILT Together With PLDC Improves Wafer Uniformity
By Aki Fujimura - 15 Apr, 2025 - Comments: 0

This is the second blog in a three-part series on pixel-level dose correction (PLDC). The first installment was “Improving Uniformity and Linearity for All Masks” from January 29, 2025. PLDC: A new solution for improving mask and wafer uniformity Improving mask uniformity is the easiest, cheapest way to improve wafer uniformity. Uniformity is a measure of how similarly the exact same feat... » read more

Reflecting On The SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning Symposium 2025
By Harry Levinson - 20 Mar, 2025 - Comments: 0

The mood at this year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning Symposium was decidedly upbeat. The outlook for business is good, due in large measure to expectations of high demand for chips, driven by artificial intelligence (AI). To realize the potential of AI, increases in chip performance and efficiency are needed, which, in turn, requires advanced patterning. In the Symposium’s technic... » read more

EUV’s Future Looks Even Brighter
By Gregory Haley - 20 Feb, 2025 - Comments: 1

The rapidly increasing demand for advanced-node chips to support everything-AI is putting pressure on the industry's ability to meet demand. The need for cutting-edge semiconductors is accelerating in applications ranging from hyperscale data centers powering large language models to edge AI in smartphones, IoT devices, and autonomous systems. But manufacturing those chips relies heavily on ... » read more

Improving Uniformity And Linearity For All Masks
By Aki Fujimura - 29 Jan, 2025 - Comments: 0

When it comes to mask quality, there are two vital measurements: uniformity and linearity. Uniformity measures the consistency of the size of mask features in all occurrences across the entire mask, because different instances of the same target size can vary in size due to manufacturing variation. Linearity measures how well different sizes of shapes on the manufactured mask match their target... » read more

Takeaways From The 2024 SPIE Photomask Technology + EUV Conference
By Harry Levinson - 04 Dec, 2024 - Comments: 0

In the autumn, I had the opportunity to attend the 2024 SPIE Photomask Technology and EUV Lithography conferences, collectively referred to as PUV or sometimes BACUS, the latter a reference to the event’s early association with the BACUS organization. This is a key annual event that brings together experts and professionals in photomask technology and EUV lithography. This year’s conference... » read more

Luminary Panel Sees Progress In EUV Pellicle Adoption As Critical For EUV
By Jan Willis - 21 Nov, 2024 - Comments: 0

A significant focus of the 2024 SPIE Photomask and EUV conference was on EUV lithography and high-numerical-aperture (high-NA) EUV lithography, offering the potential to drive resolution to new heights. These EUV solutions bring new challenges such as pellicles, mask inspection, and smaller and smaller minimum mask dimensions. Progress has been impressive, according to lithography luminary Dr. ... » read more

Luminary Panel Sees Multi-Beam Mask Writers And Curvilinear Masks Key To 193i And EUV
By Jan Willis - 24 Oct, 2024 - Comments: 0

Attendance was up and the mood was optimistic at this year’s SPIE Photomask and EUV conference held September 29 through October 3, 2024. The optimism was apparent as well for multi-beam mask writers and curvilinear masks during the eBeam Initiative’s 15th annual reception and meeting held on October 1. In the eBeam Initiative’s annual Luminaries survey, 93% of those surveyed said that pu... » read more

Overview Of The Current State of the Development Of Curvilinear Masks
By D2S - 24 Oct, 2024 - Comments: 0

A technical paper titled "Curvilinear masks overview: manufacturable mask shapes are more reliably manufacturable" was published by researchers at D2S. The paper covers: The rationale for curvilinear masks The application of the curvilinear inverse lithography technology The state of readiness of the curvilinear mask-making infrastructure, including mask rule checking, metrology, ... » read more

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