Nikon aims for beams less than 100 nm wide
Nikon Corp. (Tokyo, Japan) plans to develop a system that it hopes will replace optical lithography in the production of integrated circuits. The company is working on a reduction-projection electron-beam lithography exposure system. Nikon says the system will allow the manufacture of ICs with lines less than 100 nm wide. Such a system would be capable of printing microchips with 16 Gbit of dynamic random-access memory. On the way to such an achievement, Nikon has worked with IBM (Armonk, NY) to
Nikon aims for beams less than 100 nm wide
Nikon Corp. (Tokyo, Japan) plans to develop a system that it hopes will replace optical lithography in the production of integrated circuits. The company is working on a reduction-projection electron-beam lithography exposure system. Nikon says the system will allow the manufacture of ICs with lines less than 100 nm wide. Such a system would be capable of printing microchips with 16 Gbit of dynamic random-access memory. On the way to such an achievement, Nikon has worked with IBM (Armonk, NY) to develop a lens that would be a component of the stepper machines used in the electron-beam system. Nikon expects the steppers to be ready in 2002 or 2003 and on the market in 2005 or 2006.
