Development and commercialisation of resist technologies for nanofabrication

在过去的40年里，半导体行业一直在生产越来越强大、节能和负担得起的电子设备，这主要是由于光刻(半导体图案化)设备和材料的创新发展。随着光刻(PL)和电子束光刻(EBL)设备的改进，每一代设备都提供了越来越高的分辨率图像。作为光刻工艺的一部分，抗蚀剂被用作在硅片上物理记录从掩模成像的曝光图案的材料。为了实现光刻设备的改进，抗蚀剂的性能必须跟上步伐。Sci-tron Ltd正在开发可以定制的抗蚀剂，以应对各种形式的光刻带来的挑战。这项创新英国的提案是为了建设我们供应PL和EBL市场的能力。我们进行的测试表明，我们的产品可以为许多使用光刻技术的英国公司带来重大竞争优势。为这个多样化的市场开发最好的商业模式将是这个项目的关键目标。目前我们可以在实验室条件下生产克规模的抗蚀剂。在这个项目中，我们将开发一种灵活的制造工艺，旨在生产一系列抗蚀剂，以满足大量具有不同需求、不同规模、可能使用EBL或PL作为书写工具的潜在最终用户。对于一些抗蚀剂，我们需要扩大规模并保持低成本；对于其他定制抗蚀剂，小规模就足够了，但有能力按需生产，并在少量材料上获得高利润。与曼彻斯特大学(UOM)合作，这个为期18个月的工业研究项目将帮助我们开发制造能力，在保持所需质量控制的同时，提供在不同抗蚀剂之间切换的灵活性。主要项目活动包括：1)设计和建立灵活的制造设施，能够每年生产20公斤抗蚀剂，并能够在不同抗蚀剂配方之间切换，以满足特定的最终用户要求；2)与主要合作伙伴完成特定应用测试，以开发符合TRL6要求的抗蚀剂材料；以及3)制定完整的商业计划，详细说明所需的资源、分销和供应链，以及Sci-Tron的价值主张、团队组成和预期的财务结果。

"For the last 40 years, the semiconductor industry has been producing increasingly powerful, power efficient, and affordable electronic devices mainly due to innovative developments in lithography (semiconductor patterning) equipment and materials. Improvements in photolithography (PL) and electron beam lithography (EBL) equipments have delivered progressively higher resolution images with every generation. As part of the lithography process, 'resists' are used as materials that physically record exposure patterns on a silicon wafer as imaged from a mask. To realize the improvements in photolithography equipments, resist performance must keep pace.Sci-Tron Ltd are developing resists which can be tailored to meet the challenges presented by all forms of lithography. This Innovate UK proposal is to build our capacity to supply the PL and EBL markets. The testing we have performed suggests we have products that can produce a major competitive advantage to many UK companies which use lithography. Developing the best business model for this diverse market-place will be a key target of this project. Currently we can produce resists in laboratory conditions at a gram scale.During this project, we will develop a flexible manufacturing process which aims to produce a catalogue of resists to satisfy a large number of potential end-users that will have diverse needs, diverse scale and who may use either EBL or PL as a writing tool. For some resists we will need to scale-up and maintain low cost; for other bespoke resists small scale will be sufficient, but with the capacity to produce on demand and with a high profit on small amounts of material. In partnership with the University of Manchester (UoM), this 18 months industrial research project will help us developing manufacturing capability which provides flexibility to switch between different resists while maintaining the required quality control.Key project activities include;1) design and build a flexible manufacturing facility capable of a 20kg per annum throughput of resist, and capable of switching between different resist formulations to meet specific end-user requirements,2) complete application specific testing with key partners to develop resist materials to TRL6, and3) develop a complete business plan detailing the resources, distribution and supply chain required, and the value proposition, team composition and expected financial outcomes for Sci-Tron."