I can't believe it! Here is the article from Investor's Daily on JMAR and Dr. Martinez. Enjoy!!!!!!
SQUEEZING CHIPS: NEW X-RAY GEAR DISPLAYS PROMISE
X-rays can do more than just photograph broken bones or check for tooth cavities. The technology can be used to make ultraspeedy chips.
San Diego-based JMAR Industries Inc. is readying gear based on the results of nearly 10 years of work to create a more flexible source of X-rays for chip manufacturing.
X-rays can be used to write the circuit designs on chips in a process called lithography. These designs have a line width - also called feature size - as tiny as 0.25 micron. A human hair is a hundred microns wide.
John Martinez, co-founder and chief executive of JMAR, recently discussed with IBD lithography and X-ray technology.
IBD: Please describe lithography.
Martinez: It's a photographic process where there's a light source that projects the circuit design onto a photosensitive material that's on the semiconductor.
Lithography is really what starts the game off. If you think of a tennis match, the game really starts with the first serve. That's the role that lithography plays in semiconductor manufacturing.
IBD: Where does X-ray technology fit into lithography? Does it pick up where the latest optical advancement, deep ultraviolet light, leaves off?
Martinez: Deep UV seems to be where optical is running out of steam. That's the reason for X-ray. There's a rule of physics that says you can't project anything with light to a dimension that's much smaller than the wavelength of the light. The wavelength used to write quarter-micron features is basically a quarter-micron laser light.
IBD: How is X-ray different from laser techniques?
Martinez: X-ray has a (much, much smaller) wavelength . . . so that's no longer the limitation (to chip-feature size). X-rays could go all the way down to one-thousandth of a micron.
The disadvantage is you have to make the feature sizes in the mask exactly the same size that you want the feature sizes to be in the wafer. That can be done, using a fancy electron beam. But in optical systems the mask can be five times bigger, because after they go through the mask they'll focus it down by a factor of five. You can't do that with X-ray.
IBD: What's changed to make X-rays better suited for widespread use in chip manufacturing?
Martinez: For probably more than a decade, a lot of people have been working on X-ray lithography. (International Business Machines Corp.) in the U.S. has been the major developer. The problem is they use a great big machine called a synchrotron, which is an expensive, very inflexible X-ray source. It was developed many years ago by physicists. It's also a radiation source. You can buy a bare-bones one for $25 million.
What we're doing and have been developing for the past eight years is an X-ray source that doesn't depend upon a synchrotron. It's aimed at being roughly the size of an optical lithography machine, which is about the size of a couple of refrigerators. It's more flexible than the synchrotron.
IBD: When could JMAR's X-ray source hit the market?
Martinez: We expect some important demonstrations before the end of this year and early next year. We're forecasting that we'll start getting some orders before the end of next year, (which will be used in) our customers' research-and-development efforts.
IBD: What does going to X-ray lithography mean for the electronics industry?
Martinez: It takes the limit off (reducing) feature sizes. It also makes it possible to have higher-performance microprocessors. It means everything can get much faster because when the circuits get smaller, the electrons don't have as far to go. |
