Recent Developments, Issues and Challenges for Lithography in ULSI Fabrication

Nanofabrication is the core task performed and constantly further developed by today’s and future semiconductor industry. Optimization of throughput and minimizing process cost and complexity thus increasing fabrication reliability constitute the main challenges within this development. As integrated circuits continue to go smaller, laying down circuit patterns on semiconductor material becomes more expensive and new techniques are required. CMOS performance has always been strictly depending on the capabilities of lithography in terms of minimum feature size and overlay. Lithography has the strongest influence on production costs of integrated circuits. In this paper, some of the recent advances in lithography are summarized with special reference to the microelectronics and nano electronics industry. Stringent demands will be made on reliability, contamination control, particle detection, and yield enhancement.