32) Impressive Achievements in Microfabrication Equipment

  
High-speed electron beam lithography equipment by variable dimension shaping method


At the VLSI Technology Research Association, one of the development themes was the promotion of research and development of manufacturing equipment such as exposure equipment as a part of microfabrication technology, and the picture above is of high-speed electron beam lithography equipment by variable dimension shaping method. In conjunction with another equipment by field emission electron gun type developed concurrently, it showed its power in mask making thereafter.

In 1967, Yasuo Tarui, the head of the research association had developed an electron beam exposure apparatus in collaboration with Nihon-Denshi (JEOL Ltd.) in his former position at ElectroTechnical Laboratory. He also succeeded in creating a prototype MOS type transistor (channel length 1 μm) in 1969. These achievements helped the development of high-speed electron beam lithography equipment at the research association.

Another achievement was a reduction projection exposure apparatus, later to be called a “stepper”. At that time, ultraviolet exposure was a single step one-to-one projection to the whole wafer, but the issues such as resolution and dust, in addition to larger wafer diameter and miniaturization of processing dimensions, became the problems to be solved. Therefore, the method of reducing numbers of chips in a reticle to one and exposing one chip pattern at a time with repetition was developed.

Shoichiro Yoshida (later to be the President of Nikon and former Vice Chairman of SSIS) who was in charge of prototyping this equipment said, "We have long wanted to do a step-and-repeater with a positioning mechanism by interferometer and high-resolution lens.
So, we were very enthusiastic about the product development, and we made a lot of efforts. The fact that we are doing well in the world market today is a gift from this."

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