Nikon aims for beams less than 100 nm wide

Nikon aims for beams less than 100 nm wide

Nikon Corp. (Tokyo, Japan) plans to develop a system that it hopes will replace optical lithography in the production of integrated circuits. The company is working on a reduction-projection electron-beam lithography exposure system. Nikon says the system will allow the manufacture of ICs with lines less than 100 nm wide. Such a system would be capable of printing microchips with 16 Gbit of dynamic random-access memory. On the way to such an achievement, Nikon has worked with IBM (Armonk, NY) to develop a lens that would be a component of the stepper machines used in the electron-beam system. Nikon expects the steppers to be ready in 2002 or 2003 and on the market in 2005 or 2006.