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New maskless lithography trick may keep Moore's Law on track

arstechnica.com — Getting past the 32nm feature size will be a challenge for chip companies looking to keep Moore's Law on track. Recently, researchers uses a low-flying array of plasmonic lenses to demonstrate fast, maskless lithography that could keep the train rolling..

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 13, 2008

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  • talan64, on 10/13/2008, -1/+14Interesting technology but from the last couple paragraphs still a LONG way from ideal. Current Lithography companies are improving and developing improvements that are still far better in a production environment. Immersion is still a relatively new technology and improving every day. Mag lev stages will keep speeds up to ~100+ 12" wafers per hour, EUV will keep the lam alive even after standard optical lithography runs into the Physics wall.
  • phreak79, on 10/13/2008, -0/+9If Moore's Law does manage to continue for the next decade or so then the technological advancements they could support would be incredible.
  • tdclark23, on 10/13/2008, -0/+8When Gordon Moore first made his pronouncement, in a 1965 paper, he was just making folks aware of the trend that the number of transistors that could be placed on a chip doubled every two years. What he said has held true since despite the fact that many believe it cannot continue. We keep running into seemingly unsurmountable obstacles. It's just that new technologies appear in the nick of time to keep it going.
  • swanny89, on 10/13/2008, -0/+6I thought they used a series of chemical masks that respond to uv light and etching solutions to remove the layers of the chip.
  • Bkaufman, on 10/13/2008, -1/+6"How can you have pudding if you don't eat your meat?"
  • shakabrah, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3immersion lithography in its current state is reaching a wall. future nodes will likely need to combine immersion with double patterning, which while effective is also very expensive. EUV still has a TON of technological barriers to break through before it can become a reality, so the industry is planning on using lithography "tricks" until it can be adopted long term.
  • stutimandal, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3I saw a talk of a senior guy at IBM VLSI dvision. He told us that IBM has a clue to get to 10nm transistors already. Past 32nm should not be a challenge any more. Also, I think Intel has demonstrated working transistors and memories around 22nm.
  • Bkaufman, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3Syphon:
    I suppose its possible, but 1 memristor cannot be used to make a transistor. I believe you can combine them in a way that results in Transistor-Like (switching/amplification) behavior.
  • AlKo, on 10/13/2008, -0/+3At the very least this may be another way to drive down production costs for embedded or other more mundane processors.
  • dafragsta, on 10/13/2008, -1/+4Eventually something will come out that surpasses the transistors for computational purposes and then we'll need a new law.
  • talan64, on 10/14/2008, -0/+2They have using immersion technology with 193nm lasers for light source.
  • tamuengineer, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2Wet etchant solutions, plasma and reactive ion are all lithography techniques used, not lasers though. Ion beams are used but they use a "soft" mask (software controlled) not a physical mask.
  • inactive, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2It's going to take more than that to overcome "the wall"...
  • Crazd, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2This is probably one of the most complicated and interesting articles on the front page, but it has by far the fewest comments. I didn't understand half of what the article said, but it was damn interesting, and the type of thing that used to be on the tech-oriented digg. Great find submitter.
  • spritom, on 10/13/2008, -0/+2I remember when Intel didn't know how it was going to crack 120nm, but Dr. Moore's statement prevailed.
  • pinchduck, on 10/13/2008, -1/+3Literally it means to write in stone. Only instead of stone, they use silicon, and instead of wooden or bone stylus, they use lasers.
  • pinchduck, on 10/14/2008, -0/+1Ah, there you have it. I am apparently more up to date on the soft clay and stylus method of information processing devices that the silicon wafer method.
  • TheKitchenSinkX, on 10/13/2008, -1/+2What...what's lithography? ;_;
  • Nailrabbit, on 10/13/2008, -1/+2You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat
  • Techx4, on 10/14/2008, -0/+1Damn YOU, masked lithograph crusaders!
  • Lewie, on 10/13/2008, -1/+2"You! Yes, you behind the bikeshed, stand still laddie!"
  • 3242130193, on 10/13/2008, -0/+1Plasmons are extremely interesting as a new technology. Most processors have maxed out at 3.0 GHz because they're bottlenecked by passing information across the die (about 2-3 cm). Plasmon technology (plasmon-based transistors) could hold the promise to breaking that bottleneck. Also has a lot of applications in biosensors with enormous throughput - the ability to detect 10 - 1 antigen(s) on a single surface. Also with applications in cloaking devices and a bunch of other things. Cool stuff.
  • talan64, on 10/14/2008, -0/+1EUV is further along than you make it sound here. Read the following for some information about the progress they are making at IMEC in Belgium:
    http://www2.imec.be/imec_com/imec-reports-major-pr ...

    The "wall" that immersion is currently hitting is mostly with Coat process not scanner technology. Yes there is still issue with micro bubbles in the medium, but that is improving. Work out the track process issues and immersion is still possible for the 22nm node.
  • majordanger, on 10/14/2008, -0/+1"To Infinity and Beyond!"
  • bipolarruledout, on 10/14/2008, -0/+1Yes, but how many cores?
  • timousdesign, on 10/14/2008, -0/+1That gives hope that technology may continue to innovate at a fast pace, I was starting to think it was slowing down.
  • inactive, on 10/14/2008, -0/+1Still, they're so much smaller than transistors you'd need several thousand of them to make up the difference.
  • EmperorPsiblade, on 10/13/2008, -1/+1Barely.
  • inactive, on 10/13/2008, -2/+2Isn't Moore's law going to be thrown horribly eschew by the memristor?

    Like, since they can do they same job as transistors but at 1/1000th the scale?
  • Pelon808, on 10/13/2008, -1/+0"Wrong, Do it again!"
  • rald84, on 10/13/2008, -2/+1parallel computing ftw
  • flyingclutchman, on 10/13/2008, -11/+3who cares about 32nm plasmonic lithography *****, the real question every one cares about:

    Will it run Crysis?

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