Financial boost for e-beam
MAPPER Lithography has announced that it has been awarded a subsidy of around EUR 10 million by SenterNovem, the innovation agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The subsidy is provided as part of the High Tech Top Projects scheme. Mapper and its partners will use these funds to develop the beta tool, which will demonstrate that the Mapper lithography machines are suitable for chip production in higher volumes.
MAPPER Lithography will develop the beta tool with Catena, Technolution, Multin Hittech, Demcon and Delft University of Technology, which are not just suppliers but also shareholders in the company. Each of these businesses provides its own unique contribution to the development of the tool in the fields of MEMS, high speed data processing, optical data transmission, optics, mechatronics and motion control. In addition, Mapper works with numerous related businesses. With the subsidy, the Netherlands will reinforce its leading position in e-beam lithography compared to competitors such as Japan.
Jaap Bastiaansen, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mapper Lithography, comments: “We are very pleased with the award of this subsidy. It will enable us to, in addition to constructing machines, continue to undertake the research activities required for the optimisation of the next generation of our machines in line with our roadmap. We carry out these activities in association with the best technology companies in the Netherlands. Also the fact that leading parties including TSMC and Leti are currently testing our first machines attests to the growing confidence of the market in our innovative maskless lithography technology.”
Under the High Tech Top Projects scheme, the Ministry of Economic Affairs is providing subsidies totalling EUR 100 million for five strategic R&D projects. The development of the beta tool by Mapper is one of those projects. Subsidies have also been granted to projects by ASML, NXP, Philips and Océ.
By supporting High Tech Top Projects, Minister Maria van der Hoeven of Economic Affairs aims to help companies in high tech industries to continue to invest in their future via strategic R&D projects despite the crisis. The objective is to further strengthen the internationally leading position of the Netherlands in these fields, to ensure the Dutch economy is strongly positioned for the future.
MAPPER develops lithography machines for the semiconductor industry. These machines utilise new and innovative technology enabling the chips of the future to be produced cost-effectively. Via maskless electron lithography, over 10,000 parallel electron beams are used to write patterns of electrical circuits directly on to wafers, eliminating the expensive photo masks used in current lithography machines. Current lithography machines use photographic techniques to create extremely small electrical circuits, with a surface area of less than 1/100th of a human hair, on silicon wafers. They use a very expensive mask that contains the blueprint of the chip to transfer this pattern on to a photosensitive layer (comparable to a photograph being exposed on film).
