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Technology Stocks : General Lithography
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To: Mark Jacox who wrote (413)6/26/1997 6:31:00 PM
From: Ritz   of 1305
 
I would disagree strongly. X-ray lithography is by no means the only technology with the capability to move down to the .15 - .05 area. The alternatives are EUV, and the various direct write systems (E-beam, Ion beam). Once DUV tops out, probably at the .13 level with PSM's and other tricks, it is by no means clear what the successor technology will be. People have been predicting the imminent demise of optical lithography and the move to X-ray for at least the last ten years. It has never happened due to the extendability of optical lithography far bayond what had been thought possible. It is true that there are no transparent materials below the .15 micron level, but an all reflective EUV stepper is not an impossibility and would offer the advantage of reduction, which 1X x-ray steppers would not.

Furthermore, the problems with x-ray reticles, particularly at the feature sizes we are talking about have not yet been solved. And even if they were solved tomorrow the infrastructure for large scale x-ray reticle making does not exist, making an en masse move to X-ray lithography in the near term an impossibility. Are semiconductor makers just supposed to wait out the next 3+ years with I-line steppers, and hope X-ray is ready when the time comes?

-Ritz

P.S. UTEK is not a player in DUV anyway....
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