Taking chip-making into the next millennium
Patrick Dougherty
Put the world`s leading chipmakers in a room to discuss the future of lithography in the semiconductor business and you won`t find a more excited bunch or a topic more hotly debated. This is what you will see at SPIE`s Microlithography Symposium, to be held March 14-19, 1999, in the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA.
In 1999, the symposium will continue its tradition of presenting the latest research on state-of-the-art optical lithography techniques, issues to be faced as we extend those techniques, and issues raised by alternative technologies. This variety is increasingly important as optical lithography, historically the dominant patterning technology, becomes more difficult to apply to leading-edge IC fabrication. Long regarded as a solid users` meeting, this symposium is the forum in which the optical extension "tricks" and the alternative technologies must be supported with real data and applications.
As semiconductor roadmaps continue to aggressively shrink design rules, the cost of lithography equipment and processes to meet these demands continues to increase. At the same time, there are serious questions related to technology selection for future fabs. This year`s symposium will open with two plenary speakers presenting different perspectives on equipment selection for production.
Microlithography features 470 papers covering a wide range of topics.
Emerging Lithographic Technologies
One of the six grand challenges on the 1997 National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors is to obtain higher resolution and affordable lithography at and below 130 nm. This conference covers lithographic approaches that push beyond the "mainstream" developments in the semiconductor industry.
Metrology, Inspection, and Process Control for Microlithography
This conference encompasses the growing need for state-of-the-art metrology processes for production microlithography. Integrated circuits, microstructures, and flat-panel displays are becoming increasingly reliant on measurement, inspection, and process-control technologies to guide the development of new processes, and to guarantee robust production and high yields into the 21st century.
Resist Technology and Processing
This conference will emphasize the most recent advances of high-performance resist materials in established, maturing, and new lithographic technologies.
Optical Microlithography
This conference features papers that advance the state of the art in production microlithography. New ideas will be offered on extending resolution, minimizing linewidth variation, improving overlay, reducing cost, and increasing productivity. o
For further information
For full lists of paper titles and authors, short courses, and general information about attending the Microlithography Symposium and Exhibition, go to the Web at www.spie.org/info/ml/ or contact SPIE to request an advance technical program; e-mail: [email protected]; tel.: (360) 676-3290; FAX (360) 647-1445.
PATRICK DOUGHERTY is a promotions manager at SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering, Bellingham, WA; www.spie.org.