Microlithography & Mask Making - Development of

Summary : There are two essential applications for semiconductor lithography equipment. They are lumped together here under the name 'microlithography and mask making'. The two segments consist of mask-making equipment and wafer patterning equipment. Both have a common origin in the early step-and-repeat cameras which were used to manufacture masks which were, in turn, used to selectively expose photoresist coatings deposited on the surface of a semiconductor wafer.

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Annexure :

Microlithography equipment has historically been characterized as being the queen of the clean room. Wafer exposure equipment has, by far, the most stringent precision requirements of all-generally needing to resolve lines and spaces below one micron in width. These must often be overlaid thorough twelve or more layers-requiring alignment accuracies of better than 0.15 microns across a six or an eight inch wafer. This is about the equivalent of getting a hole-in-one from an eighteen mile drive. Such requirements for precision have stimulated a high degree of automation in microlithography equipment.

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