Not direct info on JMAR, but a relevant update on the
stage of next generation lithography at the SPIE
Microlithography meeting this past week in Santa Clara...
Projection ebeam limps along: SCALPEL is dead, but IBM
flogs the PREVAIL horse. Meanwhile, IBM quietly joins
the EUVL crowd. Last bastion in Japan of active work in
x-ray, NEC, reports most recent work on stepper, and then
shuts down the program. Intel declares EUVL the NGL winner
by default, because of the death of PEL and PXL. That means,
vendors may stop producing x-ray masks and resists. Best
at this point NOT to include x-ray in your future valuations
for JMAR at this point. As long as DARPA provides funds, I
think development will go forward, but there may be no
industrial interest anytime soon. Meanwhile 193nm is going
into production, and 157nm is progressing, meaning optical
is producing features at the size that JMAR would wish to
demonstrate. Sorry I don't have better news. All for now... |
