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To: FJB who wrote (18462)	7/15/1998 12:07:00 AM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 25960

193nm and 0.1 micron................ pubs.cmpnet.com A service of Semiconductor Business News, CMP Media Inc. Story posted at 8 p.m. EDT/5 p.m. PDT, 7/14/98 Optical lithography may go below 0.10-micron, say seminar particpants By Jack Robertson SAN FRANCISCO -- A Semicon West seminar today heard the unthinkable: that optical lithography may be extended below 0.10-micron design rules -- and Next Generation Lithography (NGL) contenders may never be needed. Panelists at the fifth annual lithography forum, held by FSI International Inc., were nearly unanimous that optical tools can be extended to 0.10-micron chip generations. But Phillip Ware, technical marketing director for Canon USA Inc., told the session that optics may go below this level -- to the point where totally new technologies such as 3-D silicon processing may be required to make even finer feature sizes. "We may never need NGL" -- such as enhanced ultraviolet, Scalpel, x-ray, or ion projection --Ware said. Another possible casualty could be 157-nm wavelength excimer laser systems, said Gerhard Gross, new director of lithography for Sematech and who held a similar position at Siemens Semiconductor. He said 193-nm wavelength argon fluroide tools could go down to 0.10-micron, eliminating the need for the 157-nm laser tool. Canon's Ware also said 157-nm lithorgraphy has no corporate champion, such as most of the other new exposure-tool contenders. "There's no firm willing to spend the many millions of dollars in R&D that is essential to perfecting a new technology." In the more immediate future, officials of both ASM Lithography and Nikon concurred that step-and-scan deep-UV systems will become the dominant, if not only, exposure tools for next-generation chips. Although scanners are more costly than similar step-and-repeat systems, the higher yields possible with step-and-scan are expected to being lower total cost of ownership. Bert Koek, ASML marketing manager, said scanners offered a two-fold depth of focus improvement at 0.18-micron procesing that steppers, and had better critical dimension control with lower distortion.