Sensor 1 Preamplifier 1 Bandpass filter 1 Phase corrector 1 K 1 Filter

hotolithography and the semiconductor industry are facing a critical juncture. The 32 nm node (at which production photolithographic technology is able to pattern some specific chip features at 32 nm) is only a few years away, and next-generation methods for patterning the even-smaller, sub-30-nanometer-scale dimensions on silicon wafers at the node beyond that are unproved. Scientists at IBM’s Almaden Research Center (San Jose, CA) aimed to explore this territory with IBM’s “NEMO” interference immersion-lithography test apparatus, but to push the limits of optical imaging, the apparatus had to be in an exquisitely stable environment. In early 2006, IBM was among five recipients of the first of a new type of intelligent-damping (iQ) optical table developed at Newport. The table provided to support NEMO included traditional pneumatic floor isolation, as well as closed-loop active damping for flexural stability. The results are just coming in, but they support recent findings that iQ technology cost-effectively improves vibration damping by a factor of 10 across low, medium, and high frequencies by up to 22 dB compared to traditional passive-damping technologies, making new levels of optical alignment, imaging, design, and measurement available to a far greater number of laboratories.