Photolithography is a process used in the manufacturing of integrated circuits. It involves using light to transfer a pattern onto a substrate, typically a silicon wafer.
A photoresist is a light-sensitive material used in several processes, such as photolithography and photoengraving, to form a patterned coating on a surface. This process is crucial in the electronics industry.
An excimer laser, sometimes more correctly called an exciplex laser, is a form of ultraviolet laser which is commonly used in the production of microelectronic devices, semiconductor based integrated circuits or "chips", eye surgery, and micromachining.
A photomask is an opaque plate with transparent areas that allow light to shine through in a defined pattern. Photomasks are commonly used in photolithography for the production of integrated circuits to produce a pattern on a thin wafer of material. In semiconductor manufacturing, a mask is sometimes called a reticle.
Electron-beam lithography is the practice of scanning a focused beam of electrons to draw custom shapes on a surface covered with an electron-sensitive film called a resist (exposing). The electron beam changes the solubility of the resist, enabling selective removal of either the exposed or non-exposed regions of the resist by immersing it in a solvent (developing). The purpose, as with photolithography, is to create very small structures in the resist that can subsequently be transferred to the substrate material, often by etching.
Masklesslithography (MPL) is a photomask-less photolithography-like technology used to project or focal-spot write the image pattern onto a chemical resist-coated substrate by means of UV radiation or electron beam.
Nanolithography (NL) is a growing field of techniques within nanotechnology dealing with the engineering of nanometer-scale structures on various materials.
Extreme ultraviolet lithography is a technology used in the semiconductor industry for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs). It is a type of photolithography that uses 13.5 nm extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light from a laser-pulsed tin (Sn) plasma to create intricate patterns on semiconductor substrates.
A stepper or wafer stepper is a device used in the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). It is an essential part of the process of photolithography, which creates millions of microscopic circuit elements on the surface of silicon wafers out of which chips are made. It is similar in operation to a slide projector or a photographic enlarger. The ICs that are made form the heart of computer processors, memory chips, and many other electronic devices.
Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is a method of fabricating nanometer-scale patterns. It is a simple nanolithography process with low cost, high throughput and high resolution. It creates patterns by mechanical deformation of imprint resist and subsequent processes. The imprint resist is typically a monomer or polymer formulation that is cured by heat or UV light during the imprinting. Adhesion between the resist and the template is controlled to allow proper release.
Extreme ultraviolet radiation or high-energy ultraviolet radiation is electromagnetic radiation in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum spanning wavelengths shorter than the hydrogen Lyman-alpha line from 121 nm down to the X-ray band of 10 nm. By the Planck–Einstein equation the EUV photons have energies from 10.26 eV up to 124.24 eV where we enter the X-ray energies. EUV is naturally generated by the solar corona and artificially by plasma, high harmonic generation sources and synchrotron light sources. Since UVC extends to 100 nm, there is some overlap in the terms.
Resolution enhancement technologies are methods used to modify the photomasks in the lithographic processes used to make integrated circuits to compensate for limitations in the optical resolution of the projection systems. These processes allow the creation of features well beyond the limit that would normally apply due to the Rayleigh criterion. Modern technologies allow the creation of features on the order of 5 nanometers (nm), far below the normal resolution possible using deep ultraviolet (DUV) light.
Contact lithography, also known as contact printing, is a form of photolithography whereby the image to be printed is obtained by illumination of a photomask in direct contact with a substrate coated with an imaging photoresist layer.
Interference lithography is a technique for patterning regular arrays of fine features, without the use of complex optical systems or photomasks.
Multiple patterning is a class of technologies for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs), developed for photolithography to enhance the feature density. It is expected to be necessary for the 10 nm and 7 nm node semiconductor processes and beyond. The premise is that a single lithographic exposure may not be enough to provide sufficient resolution. Hence additional exposures would be needed, or else positioning patterns using etched feature sidewalls would be necessary.
Microlithography is a general name for any manufacturing process that can create a minutely patterned thin film of protective materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, in order to protect selected areas of it during subsequent etching, deposition, or implantation operations. The term is normally used for processes that can reliably produce features of microscopic size, such as 10 micrometres or less. The term nanolithography may be used to designate processes that can produce nanoscale features, such as less than 100 nanometres.
Computational lithography is the set of mathematical and algorithmic approaches designed to improve the resolution attainable through photolithography. Computational lithography came to the forefront of photolithography technologies in 2008 when the semiconductor industry faced challenges associated with the transition to a 22 nanometer CMOS microfabrication process and has become instrumental in further shrinking the design nodes and topology of semiconductor transistor manufacturing.
X-ray lithography is a process used in semiconductor device fabrication industry to selectively remove parts of a thin film of photoresist. It uses X-rays to transfer a geometric pattern from a mask to a light-sensitive chemical photoresist, or simply "resist," on the substrate to reach extremely small topological size of a feature. A series of chemical treatments then engraves the produced pattern into the material underneath the photoresist.
The argon fluoride laser is a particular type of excimer laser, which is sometimes called an exciplex laser. With its 193-nanometer wavelength, it is a deep ultraviolet laser, which is commonly used in the production of semiconductor integrated circuits, eye surgery, micromachining, and scientific research. "Excimer" is short for "excited dimer", while "exciplex" is short for "excited complex". An excimer laser typically uses a mixture of a noble gas and a halogen gas, which under suitable conditions of electrical stimulation and high pressure, emits coherent stimulated radiation in the ultraviolet range.
Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (Group) Co., Ltd. (SMEE), is a semiconductor manufacturing equipment company based in Shanghai, China. The company is involved in the research, development, manufacture and sale of lithography scanners and inspection tools to the semiconductor manufacturing industry; it also provides support services to its customers.
