Next-Gen Mask Writer Race Begins

By Mark LaPedus - 19 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 5

Competition is heating up in the mask writer equipment business as two vendors—Intel/IMS and NuFlare—vie for position in the new and emerging multi-beam tool segment. Last year, Intel surprised the industry by acquiring IMS Nanofabrication, a multi-beam e-beam mask writer equipment vendor. Also last year, IMS, now part of Intel, began shipping the world’s first multi-beam mask writer f... » read more

Looming Issues And Tradeoffs For EUV

By Mark LaPedus - 25 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 5

Momentum is building for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, but there are still some major challenges to solve before this long-overdue technology can be used for mass production. [gettech id="31045" comment="EUV"] lithography—a next-generation technology that patterns tiny features on a chip—was supposed to move into production around 2012. But over the years, EUV has encountered se... » read more

Unsolved Litho Issues At 7nm

By Ed Sperling - 21 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 1

By Ed Sperling & Mark LaPedus EUV lithography is creating a new set of challenges on the photomask side for which there currently are no simple solutions. While lithography is viewed as a single technology, [gettech id="31045" comment="EUV"] actually is a collection of technologies. Not all of those technologies have advanced equally and simultaneously, however. For example, aberrations... » read more

Challenges Mount For Photomasks

By Mark LaPedus - 21 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 3

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss photomask technologies with Naoya Hayashi, research fellow at Dai Nippon Printing (DNP); Banqiu Wu, principal member of the technical staff and chief technology officer of the Mask and TSV Etch Division at [getentity id="22817" e_name="Applied Materials"]; Weston Sousa, general manager of the Reticle Products Division at [getentity id="22876" commen... » read more

Getting Ready For EUV

By Jan Willis - 06 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 0

The highly anticipated introduction of extreme ultra-violet (EUV) lithography is reflected in recent surveys conducted by the eBeam Initiative, which will be presented on Sept. 11 at the annual Photomask Technology Symposium in Monterey, Calif. There are many changes are coming to the mask industry, in addition to EUV. Those include greater use of inverse-lithography technologies (ILT) and... » read more

What’s Changing At BACUS

By Jan Willis - 17 Aug, 2017 - Comments: 0

Jim Wiley, president of SPIE BACUS, talks about this year's merger of the EUV Lithography Symposium and the SPIE Photomask Conference—including what's new and different, the latest updates on the event location, and topics to look forward to such as EUV mask inspection—as well as his predictions on machine learning. https://youtu.be/GNxUmMAU9zs » read more

Mask Modeling In The EUV Era

By Ryan Pearman - 20 Jul, 2017 - Comments: 0

D2S reviews the challenges of mask modeling in the EUV era, including the need for dose/shape separation and mid-range correction, and the impact of GPU acceleration. https://youtu.be/iVqkoVMbK4o » read more

The Future Of Patterning

By Jan Willis - 18 May, 2017 - Comments: 0

Greg McIntyre, director of advanced patterning at imec, offers his thoughts on what it’s like to work at one of the world’s leading nanoelectronics R&D centers, as well as the importance of eBeam technology to lithography and mask making, what’s driving up confidence in EUV, and the latest on imec’s joint venture with JSR in EUV resist development. [youtube vid=q8cA_9rWecU] » read more

Inside Lithography And Masks

By Mark LaPedus - 16 Mar, 2017 - Comments: 2

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss lithography and photomask technologies with Gregory McIntyre, director of the Advanced Patterning Department at [getentity id="22217" e_name="Imec"]; Harry Levinson, senior fellow and senior director of technology research at [getentity id="22819" comment="GlobalFoundries"]; David Fried, chief technology officer at [getentity id="22210" e_name="Cove... » read more

Big Changes In Patterning

By Ed Sperling - 22 Feb, 2017 - Comments: 0

Aki Fujimura, CEO of [getentity id="22864" comment="D2S"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss patterning issues at 10nm and below, including mask alignment, the need for GPU acceleration, EUV's future impact on the total number of masks, and what the re-introduction of curvilinear shapes will mean for design. SE: Patterning issues are getting a lot of attention at 10nm and 7n... » read more

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tag: photomasks