Nano imprint lithography - enables continued improvement of efficiency in the electronics industry

The ever-increasing focus on price-performance ratio for electronics in general continuously forces the electronics industry to improve cost efficiency. The manufacturing becomes more complex especially viewed from a lithography perspective. Existing lithography techniques are slowly coming close to its limitations and at the same time most of the alternatives have serious impact on manufacturing costs, which will prevent the industry from fulfilling the markets expectation to continuously improve cost efficiency. The industry is facing a situation where they have to make a choice of next generation of lithography technique. Nano imprint lithography (NIL) is the most promising techniques for industrial implementation due to its cost efficiency and its extendibility in terms of inherent capabilities to replicate even sub-10 nm features already today. The capabilities offered with NIL makes it suitable for use in several application areas such as magnetic media, displays, polymer electronics and others. In this presentation an outline of the imprint lithography techniques and market will be given as well as a description of the possible application areas in which the technique can be applied. The challenges that lie ahead will also be discussed.