SUKODO joins IMAGINE
SOKUDO, the lithography coat/develop track, process equipment, joint venture company, and CEA-Leti today announced that SOKUDO will join the new industry/research multi-partner program IMAGINE that is developing maskless lithography for IC manufacturing.
The three-year project is led by CEA-Leti, the leading French semiconductor research institute, and also includes semiconductor manufacturers TSMC and STMicroelectronics. It is evaluating a maskless lithography infrastructure and the use of MAPPER Lithography tools for high throughput. The multiple e-beam-lithography program covers a global approach to the technology, including tool assessment, patterning and process integration, data handling, prototyping and cost analysis.
“E-beam has the potential to be a viable technology for many sub-22nm lithography process layers in logic/foundry semiconductor manufacturing,” said Tadahiro Suhara, SOKUDO president and CEO. “SOKUDO is taking a comprehensive approach to being prepared for coat/develop track process readiness in multiple sub-22nm lithography technologies, including immersion ArF lithography extensions, EUV and e-beam lithography. The CEA-Leti IMAGINE collaboration brings together a focused effort to enable production-worthy e-beam lithography, including multiple resist manufacturers key to sub-22nm process development.”
“We have been working with SOKUDO’s RF3 coat-and-develop track system for many years and the IMAGINE program will benefit from the strong knowledge and support of SOKUDO in developing the necessary processes to support maskless technology,” said Serge Tedesco, CEA-Leti program manager. “The experience of CEA-Leti in e-beam technology combined with SOKUDO’s coat-and-develop track expertise will help secure the necessary process infrastructure for multi e-beam lithography.”
MAPPER Lithography B.V., based in Delft, The Netherlands, makes maskless-lithography machines for the semiconductor industry. It is supporting the IMAGINE project with its massively parallel electron-beam platforms.
