Toshiaki Ikoma-san, CTO (now retired) of Canon, gave an impressive presentation on Nano-Imprint Lithography. In addition to making a very strong statement about Canon’s commitment and ability, this paper was beautifully illustrated with photographs, many taken by Ikoma-san himself (using Canon cameras, of course).
Ikoma-san’s messages were quite simple:
- At the present time, NIL is very low cost, but suffers from poor defect density. However, it is now more than adequate for NAND-flash production.
- The trends on defect reduction, overlay (now 4.8 nm 3σ) and throughput (now 40 wph) show steady and rapid improvement since Canon took over.
- Canon is committed at the highest level to returning to semiconductor lithography.
Alas, there is no corresponding paper in the proceedings at this time.