The ever-increasing drive to fabricate Integrated Circuits (IC's) with smaller feature sizes is stretching the capabilities of today's optical lithography methods. Current techniques are becoming less scalable, with incremental improvements in resolution requiring ever increasing research and investment. New technologies are appearing, enabling conventional, optical microfabrication techniques to be replaced with simpler, scalable methods, revolutionizing IC fabrication. An alternative approach to sub-50nm lithography is presented utilizing the features of smart materials and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology. MEMS fabricated arrays of electron beam emitters offer the resolution and scalability of Multi-column Electron Beam Lithography (MEBL), while overcoming traditional limitations in production rate, optical complexity and beam current. Critical tradeoffs between significant variables are developed that show the feasibility of the proposed reference design. The proposed method consists of a highly parallel, multi-column EBL system with a production rate from 10-60 wafers/hr at 50nm resolution, and is shown to be feasible with near-term evolution in specific technologies. This solution exploits converging technologies in smart materials, MEMS and precision motion control, to overcome the limitations faced by current EBL approaches.
展开▼
