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SEMATECH identifies maskless litho issues |
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Feb 04, 2005 at 10:00 AM |
A SEMATECH- led steering commitee has ranked the critical issues for
bringing maskless lithography (ML2) from R&D concepts to limited
commercial production, possibly within the decade. "The cost of
developing mask sets for leading-edge litho applications are becoming a
growing concern for many IC manufaturers" said Walt Trybula, SEMATEH
Senior Fellow and meeting organizer. "Clearly, maskless lithography is
a potential solution for the mask cost issue."
ML2 challenges centered on business and technical issues, as well as
concerns over the overall maturity of the various technologies and
markets. Specific concerns and issues identified by the steering
committee, which include; Throughput; Timing for market and development
funding. Technical issues for both O-ML2 and CP-ML2 were, Beam
calibrationn, verification and inspection of pixels on wafer.
Compatability with optical lithography process; Data storage, volume,
and transmission were also higlighted. Other technical issues
were; Data verification, redundancy, compression; Platform Stitching
errors affecting critical dimension (CD) and overlay.
Specific issues for charged- particle masks
-Beam current versus throughput tradeoff and extensibility
-Beam stability/reliability
-Blanker array
-Contamination/charging of column
-Corrections (proximity, heating, other)
-Source stability/dose accuracy/shot noise
Specific issues for optical maskless
-Laser requirements
-Resolution extensibility
-Modulator
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Lithography 
