450mm Nanoimprint Lithography Market Heats Up
By Mark LaPedus, SemiMD senior editor
Before moving to traditional optical lithography, the new 450mm consortium in New York initially plans to use nanoimprint lithography technology for test wafer patterning.
EV Group is believed to be developing a 450mm imprint system for this new and major consortium. And now, rival Molecular Imprints Inc. (MII) has entered the 450mm arena.
MII has been awarded a contract by an undisclosed “leading IC manufacturer” to build a 450mm-capable nanoimprint lithography system. As part of this 450mm contract award, MII will provide the lithography system and subsequent wafer services to the undisclosed chip maker beginning the second half of next year. That chip maker, in turn, will supply test wafers to the 450mm consortium members.
MII’s purchase includes a multi-year wafer patterning services contract and the option for additional 450mm nanoimprint systems. The company refers to its imprint technology as Jet and Flash Imprint Lithography (J-FIL).
The “contract is with one entity,” said Paul Hofemann, vice president of corporate marketing and business development for MII (Austin, Texas), without elaborating on the customer. Observers speculated that the customer is Intel.
The “leading IC manufacturer” is part of the recently-announced 450mm consortium, dubbed the Global 450 Consortium. “We don’t have a contract with the consortium,” Hofemann said. “However it is a company that has taken a lead role for most of the early 450mm tool procurement for this consortium and should be of no surprise.”
The recently-announced Global 450 Consortium or G450C — includes five IC manufacturers — with IBM and GlobalFoundries joining the original “IST” members, Intel, Samsung, and TSMC. Those companies, along with Sematech and the SUNY-Albany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), will sit on a board of directors that will govern the consortium.
The G450C demonstration line in Albany is targeted for 14nm design rules in early 2013 with imprint technology used for test wafer patterning over the first year. EV Group is believed to be developing a 450mm imprint system for the G450C.
Now, MII is apparently gaining some business — albeit indirectly. “In the interest of schedule, this first 450mm nanoimprint system purchase will remain at Molecular Imprints facility, although the IC manufacturer paid for it in full and owns the tool’s title,” Hofemann said.
In this arrangement, the undisclosed chip maker that owns the 450mm imprint tool can process wafers and pass them to the members of the G450C, he said. “As we discussed, we received one contract with one IC manufacturer. This single contract includes both a tool purchase and subsequent wafer services. The final patterned wafers will be supplied from MII to our one IC manufacturer. They will in turn distribute these patterned wafers to support the 450mm initiative,’’ he said.
“This eliminates any delays associated with shipping, re-install, re-qualifying, remote personnel training, spares planning, etc. This is consistent with the G450C virtual fab strategy in the early 450mm supply chain. Having early access to patterned wafers is in the critical path of 450mm transition and this tactic will shave many months of the schedule,’’ he said.
With optical 193i lithography already forced to adopt complex multiple patterning schemes to fabricate today’s semiconductors and EUV’s elusive readiness it is no surprise that imprint technology has been called upon in 450mm. MII’s J-FIL has demonstrated 24nm patterning with line edge roughness (<2nm LER, 3 sigma) and critical dimension uniformity (1.2nm CDU, 3 sigma) with extensibility beyond sub-18nm using a simple single patterning step process.
MII's Mark Melliar-Smith
Mark Melliar-Smith, president and CEO of MII, said: “Our J-FIL technology is the only lithographic solution available today that can meet the broad requirements of the industry’s 450mm transition. We look forward to leveraging our capabilities to enable a timely 450mm transition at the required design rules.”
Tags: 450mm, Molecular Imprints
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:08 pm
We are beginning to see the bifurcation (trifurcation?) of the lithography market and the end of the half century rule of optical. Exotic multi patterning solutions will continue for high end logic, as they can afford it. EUV may or may not make it, and, if it does, will be as costly as exotic optical solutions. E-beam may make it for prototyping and very low volume runners, where eliminating high mask costs offsets the slow e-beam throughput. And imprint will take hold in NVM, the most elastic of markets, because of its inherent low cost, resolution, and process ease. Probably first in sub-20nm critical layers in NAND flash, then all layers in NAND’s crosspoint successor.