Is there light at the end of the NGL tunnel?

摘要

What are the ultimate limits of light for lithography, what technology might eventually replace it, and at what node? These issues were hotly debated at the 25th Annual SPIE Microlithography Symposium ending March 3 in Santa Clara, CA. The promise of surging demand for advanced chips added urgency to the proceedings. Steady progress in several next-generation lithography (NGL) systems was reported, but all continue to face significant challenges before becoming production-worthy. A clear winner has not yet emerged. Meanwhile, experiments at MIT's Lincoln Labs suggest that enhanced optical techniques may be capable of reaching 50nm features or even lower, postponing the need for alternate technologies, perhaps all the way to the limits of current planar CMOS devices (Figs. 1 and 2).