Canon ships first nanoimprint chipmaking machine to R&D lab

Canon has shipped its first ever nanoimprint lithography machine to the Texas Institute for Electronics for use in its R&D labs. The tech, we're told, can produce 5nm circuit patterns using a mold, rather than light, to transfer them to a semiconductor wafer. In October last year, the Japanese multinational revealed it was …

[Neil Barnes]

Taking a leaf from HP's playbook?

We've got this really nice printer... but you've got to use our ink...

Wiping my inky fingers on someone else's jacket --->

[Anonymous Coward]

No touching

What do I know, but you would think that defectivity from particles would be a major issue here ….

[Andy 73]

Re: No touching

Can't be so different from the optical process, in that any contaminants in the region of the wafer are going to be catastrophic at that scale of process.

[David Newall]

Re: No touching

Defectivity is not a real word. The word you want is defects.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, someone's got to ask... How are they making the "mould" with 14nm features?

Isn't that process very likely to be lithographic to achieve the feature size, and if so, why is this machine cheaper?

[0laf]

I'm guessing but like any other mould you might spend a lot of money and time making the mould but you only do that once then the products you make from it are much easier and cheaper to produce.

Right now the expensive lithographic process needs to be done every time.

[DS999]

They could use electron beams for that. If e-beam could work (several orders of magnitude) faster it would be a viable candidate to replace lithography in mass production, but for one time stuff like prototype of making the "mold" for imprinting a process that requires hours is not an issue.

[eldakka]

> Ok, someone's got to ask... How are they making the "mould" with 14nm features?

Electron-beam lithography

The primary advantage of electron-beam lithography is that it can draw custom patterns (direct-write) with sub-10 nm resolution. This form of maskless lithography has high resolution but low throughput, limiting its usage to photomask fabrication, low-volume production of semiconductor devices, and research and development.

[elsergiovolador]

Coating

Probably comes with a starter coating pack and refill costs more than the whole contraption.

(I remember buying new Canon printer each time it ran out of ink as it was cheaper)

[sw guy]

Re: Coating

Of course, you know that buying a new printer is cheaper than buying a cartridge because the bundled cartridge is smaller than the refill one

[Alan Brown]

Re: Coating

If you do the math on that, it frequently works out that replacing the printer is still cheaper than buying supplies

[naive]

It must pretty amazing technology

That transistor based logic can be printed in a way that resembles stamping metal parts. Transistors contain layers of different materials to enable the current switching capabilities they have.

If the yield exceeds that of UV based chip making, prices for high end chips could drop significantly.

[DS999]

Re: It must pretty amazing technology

Imprinting only replaces the lithography steps. It doesn't replace the other chipmaking steps that deposit materials that are still necessary to make working transistors.

[Alan Brown]

Re: It must pretty amazing technology

If it works in volume production at lower resolutions cheap chips get to be even cheaper

micron scale may not be "state of the art" but it's good enough for a lot of stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

At least they got their naming right this time.

I mean, calling their first inkjet "bubblejet" made for some uncomfortable product numbers. BJ 130, really?

:)

[williamyf]

Re: At least they got their naming right this time.

Then Do not go to this store in florida:

https://www.bjs.com/

[Christoph]

Re: At least they got their naming right this time.

But you can get a Laser Canon!

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: At least they got their naming right this time.

IIRC, BubbleJet technology is different to inkjet technology. The former heats the ink at the nozzle causing it to "bubble" and squirt onto the paper, the latter uses the piezoelectric effect to project the ink droplet.

It sounds funny now, but I don't really recall BJ having an especially common NSFW usage here in the UK at the time. Maybe more of a US thing that only crossed the pond with the spread of the WWW. Was it a running joke that one of the main characters in M.A.S.H was called BJ or was BJ in the NSFW form still not ubiquitous in the USA even that recently?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nanoimprint has been around for a while

Stephen Chou at Princeton did a lot of work on it back in the 90s, and Molecular Imprint Inc. (MII) used to sell nanoimprint lithography tools:

https://www.theregister.com/2008/09/30/hdd_areal_density_improvements/

MII got bought by Canon in 2014, so it may be new development of the same technology.

[eldakka]

Some of your questions answered

Several posters have posed questions/made comments about this process, most of these are answered in the Asianometry Youtube channel's video on this, A Deep Dive Into Canon’s Nanoimprint Lithography.