TI, Agere and others support electron projection lithography, says Nikon
By Semiconductor Business News
Feb 22, 2001 (7:57 AM)
URL: siliconstrategies.com
TOKYO -- Nikon Corp. today said it had lined up a number of major technology suppliers and chip makers in support of electron projection lithography in production fabs by the middle of this decade. Nikon today announced an acceleration of its electron projection lithography R&D in an attempt to ship the first EPL production tools by the end of 2004 (see today's story). Nikon claimed it is strengthening EPL support and infrastructure, including partnerships with mask makers, photoresist manufacturers and chip makers worldwide. For example, Nikon said Hoya Corp. of Japan is providing test reticles for its first-generation EPL system, and it expects its partner to provide production photomasks in the future.
Japan's Semiconductor Leading Edge Technology Inc. (Selete) consortium has agreed to support Nikon's electron projection lithography. Nikon also said Texas Instruments Inc. expects to be using the EPL technology as soon as its available.
Nikon argues that electron projection lithography is gaining momentum because e-beam resists eliminate the risks associated with development of materials and processes for 157-nm optical exposure tools and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) resists.
The electron projection lithography efforts at Nikon are also getting support from Agere Systems, the semiconductor spinoff from Lucent Technologies Inc. Electron-beam projection lithography was pioneered by Lucent's Bell Laboratories, which applied the technology in its Scalpel system. The Scalpel tool had the support of Applied Materials Inc. and ASM Lithography until recently when the two equipment giants decided to dissolve a joint venture--called eLith LLC--in favor of focusing more effort on EUV technology (see Jan. 5 story).
But the Lucent chip spinoff isn't giving up on electron projection lithography. "Agere believes in the viability of EPL technology for next generation lithography (NGL)," said Dale Ibbotson, director of VLSI process development at Agere. "In particular, we expect EPL to be especially suited to communications semiconductors, where the technology's speed, flexibility and low-cost masks are key attributes. Agere intends to work with the available infrastructure vendors as we look to bring EPL technology into our fabs," he added.
While it pushes harder to prepare EPL tools for shipment in 2004, Nikon said it will continue aggressive development of 157-nm and EUV systems. The company said it believes the ultimate solution for next-generation wafer fabs will be a mix-and-match strategy using EPL, EUV and optical 157-nm exposure tools for "the most economic and timely" solution to meet the industry's technology roadmap requirements later this decade. |
