FEB. 12 Jupiter, Florida–Photronics, Inc., a leading photomask supplier, announced today that it has signed a multi-system purchase agreement with Toshiba Machine Co., Ltd. for its EBM-3500 vector scanning electron beam photomask lithography system.

The first system will be installed in the Photronic’s facility in Hsinchu, Taiwan, to meet the increasing demands of sub-wavelength lithography requirements by customers outsourcing their advanced integrated circuit designs to the region’s wafer foundries. Additional systems will be installed in North America and Europe as semiconductor manufacturers in those regions move from the 130-nm technology node process development phase into early volume production. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Toshiba Machine’s EBM-3500 vector scan electron beam reticle lithography tool is currently the only photomask lithography system capable of meeting the semiconductor industry’s 130-nm technology node volume production requirements. Additionally, Photronics believes that its advanced processes will enable Toshiba Machine’s platform to be extended down to the 100-nm technology node.

The EBM-3500 uses a multi-pass writing strategy that supports a minimum address unit of 1.25 nm. The tool’s 50kV acceleration voltage, variable shaped beam, and real-time proximity effect correction capabilities combine to provide Photronics with a unique high resolution, high throughput solution for the 130-nm technologies now being introduced at leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing facilities around the world.

Supporting Toshiba Machine’s systems will be state-of-the-art dry etch tools from Applied Materials, inspection systems from KLA-Tencor, reticle repair systems from FEI, and metrology tools from Leica. These tools are being installed because of their technological capabilities in maximizing the performance of Photronics’ new Toshiba Machine’s EBM-3500 systems.