May 3, 2007 — Hewlett-Packard says it has signed its first nanotechnology licensing deal for a process that may enable manufacture more powerful semiconductors inexpensively. Using HP’s approach to nanoimprint lithography, Nanolithosolutions has developed a tool for stamping out patterns for wires that make up computer chips.

Hewlett-Packard spends about $3.6 billion a year on research and development and licenses the resulting technology. This is the first deal related to the nanotechnology work done at the company’s Quantum Science Research group over the past 12 years, said Stan Williams, the group’s director. About 10 percent of the 600 people at HP Labs work on nanotechnology.

Nanolithosolutions said its tool adapts existing equipment into high-resolution nanoimprint lithography machines, which are then used to create miniaturized patterns that can be measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter. The technology costs one- tenth of current systems, which start at about $1 million, said Bo Pi, chief executive officer of Nanolithosolutions.
Once a “master” mold is created, copies can be stamped out quickly and filled in with wires as part of a manufacturing process that delivers higher-density, more powerful chips at lower costs.

Using the process, HP Labs has created prototypes with wire widths of 15 nanometers, about one-third the size of the most advanced chips due this year, Williams said.

Terms were not disclosed. Hewlett- Packard holds an equity stake in Nanolithosolutions.