Can Molecular Imprints circumvent lithography altogether?
As we follow the process curve from 65 nm to 45 and 32, the challenge of lithography at critical layers is intruding deeper and deeper into the SoC design process. What had been the otherwise-invisible added expense of OPC has become an avalanche of design rules, often rendering perfectly reasonable structures—from an electrical point of view—off limits. And the handwriting is on the wall: below 65 nm we will see more model-based lithography-correction tools, more restrictions on cell designers, and in many cases, highly restrictive design rules. The latter are so unpalatable to many designers that alternatives are already starting to show up. One small group of players in the industry wants to avoid the whole problem of nanometer optical lithography by doing away with the optical part. Nano-imprint technology typically uses e-beam systems to create a mechanical template, not unlike the tools used to press CDs, but on a much finer scale. These folks make a template that is an exact 1:1
