In the race to power artificial intelligence and edge computing, the semiconductor industry faces an unprecedented challenge: creating chips with impossibly small features while ensuring every microscopic component lands precisely where it should.
The industry’s ability to deliver these innovations depends on our ability to manufacture chips at ever-smaller nodes in higher volumes.
This challenge manifests acutely in the patterning process — the crucial stage where microscopic circuit designs are transferred onto silicon wafers.
A Revolutionary Approach to Advanced Patterning
Aether, our groundbreaking dry resist technology, fundamentally reimagines the resist process with dry processing, which breaks several key tradeoffs in the printing of microscopic circuit designs on wafer.
With this pristine, vacuum-based approach, Aether extends single print patterning. This reduces both the cost and complexity of creating the intricate patterns required for next-generation chips.
Additionally, the technology’s metal-organic compounds absorb three to five times more light during extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography than traditional carbon-based resist materials, dramatically lowering the cost while improving performance.
Features + Benefits
- Enhanced photon absorption and precision patterning capabilities enable manufacturers to maintain single print patterning at advanced nodes.
- Contrast to traditional methods of double patterning, which costs 1.5-2x more than single print patterning.
- Reduced process steps and extending single print pattern fidelity, Aether streamlines production flows, which translates to higher yields.
- Improved precision enables the creation of denser, faster memory arrays that can keep pace with AI’s growing appetite for data.
- Dramatically reduced chemical usage, creating a more environmentally friendly solution.
Lam’s dry resist technology represents a fundamental rethinking of how we create the building blocks of modern computing. Aether, when combined with Lam’s suite of advanced patterning solutions for EUV patterning, enables patterning at the lowest cost to the industry, ultimately pushing the boundaries of physics and delivering on the future of AI.
Additional Resources
-
Breakthrough EUV Dry Photoresist Technology from Lam Research Adopted by Leading Memory Manufacturer