Microlithography

Microlithography is a general name for any manufacturing process that can create a minutely patterned thin film of protective materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, in order to protect selected areas of it during subsequent etching, deposition, or implantation operations. The term is normally used for processes that can reliably produce features of microscopic size, such as 10 micrometres or less. The term nanolithography may be used to designate processes that can produce nanoscale features, such as less than 100 nanometres. Microlithography is a microfabrication process that is extensively used in the semiconductor industry and also manufacture microelectromechanical systems. Specific microlithography processes include: Photolithography using light projected on a photosensitive metarial film (photoresist). Electron beam lithography, using a steerable electron beam. Nanoimprinting Interference lithography Magnetolithography Scanning probe lithography Surface-charge lithography Diffraction lithography These processes differ in speed and cost, as well as in the material they can be applied to and the range of feature sizes they can produce. For instance, while the size of features achievable with photolithography is limited by the wavelength of the light used, the technique it is considerably faster and simpler than electron beam lithography, that can achieve much smaller ones. The main application for microlithography is fabrication of integrated circuits ("electronic chips"), such as solid-state memories and microprocessors. They can also be used to create diffraction gratings, microscope calibration grids, and other flat structures with microscopic details.

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Microlithography

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Etching is used in microfabrication to chemically remove layers from the surface of a wafer during manufacturing. Etching is a critically important process module, and every wafer undergoes many etching steps before it is complete. For many etch steps, part of the wafer is protected from the etchant by a "masking" material which resists etching. In some cases, the masking material is a photoresist which has been patterned using photolithography. Other situations require a more durable mask, such as silicon nitride.

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