An important step in bringing e-Beam maskless lithography to the fab floor could be in the making with news that MAPPER’s massively parallel electron beam platform is to be shipped to CEA-Leti, kicking-off a its three-year IMAGINE program to make the technology ready for IC production at the 22nm node and beyond.
“July 2009 is an important month in MAPPER’s history, since we will be shipping our first two machines,” said Christopher Hegarty, MAPPER’s CEO. “Given CEA-Leti’s extensive expertise in e-beam lithography, we are delighted that one of our machines is installed at their fab in line with our roadmap. We are looking forward to working with industry partners to get this technology to a manufacturing level.”
MAPPER’s second tool is destined for TSMC and is also partnering with Leti in the IMAGINE program. The program will develop and qualify the complete infrastructure from data preparation to process integration of the maskless technology as well as be the core centre for all tool upgrades needed for volume production use.
Olivier Demolliens, head of Nanotec at CEA-Leti said, “This is a very important step as it is the first attempt to install such equipment in an industrial environment, and we are very excited to do it at CEA-Leti. By sharing developments with our partners, we are on the way to establishing the potential of the multibeam technology and to offer new promising perspectives to the semiconductor industry.”