Pushing the limits of lithography for IC production

Advanced lithography approaches will be reviewed from the point of view of volume production applications. Three key questions will be considered: 1. At what design rule will optical lithography die? 2. What are the requirements for a production-worthy lithography? 3. What are the prospects for a non-optical lithography meeting all of these requirements? The high productivity and maturity of optical lithographic processes constitutes a huge "activation energy barrier" that any non-optical approach must break through. At the present time, all non-optical lithographic techniques are far behind the overall production capability of optical techniques. 1x X-ray proximity printing is the most mature post-optical lithography.