Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/10

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Subject: Re: [Leica] [ OFF TOPIC ] Photolithography
From: Berg Na <bergna@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 08:36:16 -0800 (PST)

Jim Brick wrote:

<<...Design on a Sun workstation, route and tape-out via computer
programs, directly to the fab process... Basically, semiconductor
photolithography equipment was a niche market, which is now
non-existent.>>

Sorry, but you're wrong and the process you described does not exist
in any production fabs.
 
Photolithography is currently one of the most critical operations in
the chip manufacturing industry. It is basically a pattern transfer
process used to replicate the chip designs - layer by layer - onto the
silicon wafers. The chip layout is first etched onto a quartz
photomask by laser or electron beam technology to form a pattern in
chrome. A single mask typically costs $4-10K and most chip designs
requires 12-20 masking layers. The masks are then used on special
machines called 'aligners' which accurately place and expose the
patterns on the wafers. These machines use UV corrected 5:1 reduction
lenses with diffraction-limited resolution capability. Canon and Nikon
dominate the multi-billion mask aligner industry, delivering machines
which can print 0.25 micron features in production.

Berg

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