UV lithography: Taking extreme measures
Friday, December 9, 2011 - 08:31
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- Sometime soon, microchip fabricators will take the next major step in the relentless reduction of feature size, from the current minimum of 22 nm down to 10 nm and perhaps even smaller. Getting there, however, will entail much more than incremental progress. It will require adopting entirely new technology and surmounting a formidable roster of technological problems. One of most daunting of those identifying and characterizing the factors that cause contamination of key lithographic components has begun to yield to investigators in PML's Sensor Science Division, who have made some surprising and counterintuitive discoveries of use to industry.