MEDEAs lithography project

03/01/1998

MEDEA`s lithography project

Work is progressing on post-193-nm, ion-projection lithography (IPL) under Europe`s MEDEA project. The governments of Austria, Germany, and The Netherlands - and several companies - are taking equal funding positions in the $36 million, four-year IPL project, which began in April.

Participating companies are Siemens, ASM Lithography, Leica, IMS-Stuttgart, and IMS-Vienna, which is building a process development tool to be ready by the second half of 1999. Leica will provide the x-y stage, and ASML is to provide the alignment system. The tool will be installed at IMS-Stuttgart late in 1999 or early in 2000. In parallel, Siemens will develop stencil masks at its mask house. The company expects to be able to produce defect-free masks by mid-2000 and to be in volume production by 2001.

MEDEA will also begin to explore e-beam lithography and EUV by the middle of 1998. It will monitor the progress of x-ray and projection e-beam (SCALPEL) in the US, as more than one option may be suitable, depending on the application. The group chose to work first on IPL because it can be used right after optical lithography and because it uses a 4? stencil mask technology that may be adaptable to SCALPEL and EUV.