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Feb. 20, 2003 — Don’t call it a stampede, but the first generation of machine tools for molding tiny devices with nanoimprint lithography (NIL) is on its way to market.
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NIL encompasses a variety of methods for stamping or impressing ultrasmall patterns and structures onto a surface. It could also serve as a low-cost alternative to the photolithography processes currently used to carve out MEMS devices, microfluidic systems and computer chips.
Molecular Imprints Inc. (MII), an Austin, Texas-based startup formed in 2001, expected to ship its first Imprio 100 machine to an undisclosed customer at the end of January, but the sale has been delayed. Chief Executive Norm Schumaker said a typical early customer for the $2 million machine would be an industrial lab looking to prototype and build advanced MEMS, optical components and thin films in disk drive heads.
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Princeton University professor Stephen Chou, a pioneer in NIL, founded Nanonex Corp. in Monmouth Junction, N.J., in early 2000. The company is now marketing a line of imprinting tools that can produce features as small as 10 nanometers.
“This is the solution to commercializing nanotechnology,” said Chou, who spent a decade developing NIL techniques and holds several key patents. Chou said Nanonex will initially target MEMS and other small tech niches where NIL’s lower cost makes it particularly attractive.
Nanonex Vice President Larry Koecher said the Nanonex Series 1000, 2000 and 3000 tools cost $300,000, $400,000 and $700,000 respectively. Nanonex’s 1000 model uses heat to harden a nanostructure in place. The 2000 model can imprint with either heat or UV light. And the 3000 model can control the alignment of the molding process. Such precise alignment is necessary for building devices with multiple layers of material.
Koecher and Chou said the 10-person company has two orders for machines and is expecting more soon.
EV Group, a semiconductor and MEMS production equipment maker based in Austria, is developing three nanoscale imprinting systems: a “hot embossing” device that works at high temperature and precise pressure; a nanoimprint machine that solidifies polymer material with UV light; and a micro contacting printing process that uses a flexible stamp to deposit patterns on surfaces with existing topographical features.
Paul Lindner, director of EVG’s technology group, said that the company has been working on NIL for five years and has delivered equipment for NIL R&D to 50 university and industrial labs. Lindner said that the goal is to industrialize these systems for customer applications such as DNA sequencing devices, mass data storage, advanced packaging and microsystem technology (MST), the European moniker for MEMS.
Patrik Lundstrom, chief executive of Obducat AB, a Swedish maker of electron beam writers and electron microscopes, said his company has sold five pilot production NIL machines and expects to deliver between 20 and 25 more to customers in 2003.
MII’s Imprio machine produces nanostructures with a process called step-and-flash imprint lithography. A liquid monomer solution is introduced under a quartz mold and exposed to a burst of ultraviolet light that solidifies the material.
“We’re using nanotechnology to make nanotechnology, ” Schumaker said, referring to the microfluidic system that dispenses the silicon monomer.
A spinout from the University of Texas at Austin, MII now has a staff of 27, contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and $12 million in funding from investors that include Motorola Inc., the investment arm of semiconductor equipment maker KLA-Tencor, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and others.
“Nanoimprint lithography is one of the holy grails of nanotechnology,” said Neil Gordon, a nanotech analyst with Sygertech Consulting Group Inc. in Montreal and president of the Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance.
If NIL proves itself in the next few years in the niche applications that Nanonex and MII are targeting, Gordon believes it could potentially challenge extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) as the next-generation process for making computer chips, complex electronics and semiconductor products.
Ramana Jampala, a principal with Silicon Alley Seed Investors in New York, sees several hurdles to nanoimprint lithography becoming a large factor in the multibillion-dollar chip industry.
“Semiconductor fabs haven recently invested billions to produce next-generation devices. In the long run, paradigm shifts in advanced lithography are predicted, such as maskless lithography,” he said. But the chances of a new and unproven technology such as NIL supplanting such an entrenched financial and technical commitment are “risky in the short run,” Jampala said.
In the meantime, Gordon observed that companies that are already using NIL techniques, such as NanoOpto Inc. (an optical components maker also founded by Steve Chou), “are going to have to demonstrate reasonable volume and quality control to give credibility to specific NIL equipment.” Chou reports that NanoOpto has been using a Nanonex machine in commercial production for more than a year.