Canon Delivers FPA -1200NZ2C Nanoimprint Lithography System for Semiconductor Manufacturing to the Texas Institute for Electronics

[Nomad76]

Canon Inc. announced today that it will ship its most advanced lithography platform, the FPA-1200NZ2C nanoimprint lithography (NIL) system for semiconductor manufacturing, to the Texas Institute for Electronics (TIE), a Texas-based semiconductor consortium. Canon became the first in the world to commercialize a semiconductor manufacturing system that uses NIL technology, which forms circuit patterns in a different method from conventional projection exposure technology, when it released the FPA-1200NZ2C on October 13, 2023.

In contrast to conventional photolithography equipment, which transfers a circuit pattern by projecting it onto the resist coated wafer, the new product does it by pressing a mask imprinted with the circuit pattern into the resist on the wafer like a stamp. Because its circuit pattern transfer process does not go through an optical mechanism, fine circuit patterns on the mask can be faithfully reproduced on the wafer. With reduced power consumption and cost, the new system enables patterning with a minimum linewidth of 14 nm, equivalent to the 5 nm node that is required to produce most advanced logic semiconductors currently available.





This FPA-1200NZ2C will be used at TIE for the research and development of advanced semiconductors and production of prototypes.

TIE is a semiconductor consortium which was founded in 2021 and is supported by The University of Texas at Austin. It consists of state and local governments, semiconductor companies, national research institutions and other entities. TIE provides open access to semiconductor research and development initiatives and prototyping facilities in order to help solve issues related to advanced semiconductor technology, including advanced packaging technology.

Canon will continue to promote research and development using nanoimprint lithography systems for semiconductor manufacturing to contribute to the evolution of semiconductor manufacturing technology.

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[Minus Infinity]

Sounds exciting and I hope they can eventually get it down to 2 nm. ASML should be worried IMO. One of their EUV high NA machines cost $400 million and are ridiculously complex.

 

[Wirko]

There appear to be some downsides too, as with any tech.

Finally, NIL is incompatible with flows involving DUV or EUV, making it very challenging to integrate into existing manufacturing flows; chipmakers will have to design their production technologies around NIL — which is both expensive and risky. - Tom's

Here's my guess why: with a projection system, you can adjust the magnification factor in order to achieve perfect overlay of layers. With this "printing press", you can't do that. This means that using DUV or EUV for the first few layers, then NIL for the next few layers, might not be possible.