SAN FRANCISCO--Startup Nanonex Corp. here this week announced it has begun shipping its first products--a line of nano-imprint lithography tools said to process devices at feature sizes down to 10-nm (0.01-micron) and below.
Nanonex--which claims its tools sell for well below $1 million per unit--is the latest company to enter the nano-imprint lithography field. EV Group, Molecular Imprints, Obducat and others are also shipping or developing products for this new and emerging market.
Nano-imprint lithography is a new and "disruptive" technology. Tools based on the technology do not utilize an optical lens, but rather it makes use of ultraviolet (UV) and liquid immersion techniques to enable or "imprint" patterns on a wafer.
Nanonex claims it is ahead of the competition--based on its ability to ship product in the marketplace. "Our moto is that we deliver," declared Stephen Chou, who is considered the pioneer in the nano-imprint lithography field. Chou, chairman and founder of Princeton, N.J.-based Nanonex, is also the Joseph E. Elgin Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University.
Chou said the company has already received enormous attention in the marketplace, especially from major chip makers that are scrambling to obtain lower-cost lithography gear. But Nanonex is targeting its tools for MEMS and other niche-oriented markets--at least for now, he said.
"We see our tools used in industrial and research applications," he said. "We are not an EUV killer--yet," he said in an interview during the first Nanoimprint and Nanoprint Technology Conference (NNT) in San Francisco this week.
Chou was referring to extreme ultraviolet (EUV), which is the leading candidate in the next-generation lithography (NGL) race for the production of chips at the 65-nm node and beyond.
Nanonex is offering three types of nano-imprint tools--the Nanonex Series 1000, 2000, and 3000, which are geared for 2-, 4-, 6-, and 8-inch wafer substrates.
The 1000 is a tool that comes without an alignment operation and is geared for thermal plastic resist applications. The 2000 also comes without alignment and is aimed for both thermal and UV curable polymer applications, while the 3000 offers sub-micron alignment for precision multi-layer devices.
The 1000, 2000, and 3000 sell for $300,000, $400,000, and $700,000, respectively.
