Moore's law still alive in new printing techniques

The development of lithography technology is the driving force behind the establishment of Moore's Law. The shorter wavelength, better lens, directly promoted the release of 45nm commercial chips, and the 32mn process is also being tested. You may be surprised, but there is no doubt that it will not stay at this level. It will continue to move forward. Yesterday scientists released a new maskless lithography technology, which may be the key to manufacturing chips smaller than 32nm process.

Traditional photolithography uses negative mask imaging for etching on the chip, but this technique is costly and requires long development times and requires high precision. You can imagine that this is a high R&D cost, and it may also be a factor that slows down the development of the circuit.

The new maskless lithography technology can overcome the above problems by using plasmons generated by the action of light beams and electrons. The light causes the electrons to oscillate, then forms many large electric fields and light fields, and produces a series of metal rings on the crystals, thereby forming a focusable spot for etching.

Theoretically using this technique can produce a 5-10nm chip, but in fact only a 20nm plasma beam can be formed. It seems that there is still a long way to go.