Inpria joins SEMATECH’s Resist Center at UAlbany NanoCollege for advanced EUV resist development

ALBANY & CORVALLIS, USA: SEMATECH, a global consortium of chipmakers, announced that Inpria, a developer of chemical materials for the deposition of high-performance oxide thin films, has joined SEMATECH’s Resist Materials and Development Center (RMDC) at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany.

As a resist member of SEMATECH’s lithography program, Inpria will collaborate with SEMATECH engineers on critical issues for resist in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Inpria’s inorganic resists have resolved 11 nm line/space features and exhibit extremely high etch resistance. In this collaboration, Inpria and SEMATECH will extend such high-resolution resists to qualify the 0.5 NA EUV imaging optics at the heart of the major upgrades underway to support resist research for 11 nm half-pitch and below in the RMDC facilities. Inpria will also work to increase the photosensitivity of its resist materials to meet productivity requirements for future manufacturing applications.

“Our partnership with SEMATECH provides Inpria the opportunity to rapidly increase the rate of development for our EUV lithography materials,” said Andrew Grenville, CEO of Inpria. “We are excited to combine SEMATECH’s proven track record operating leading-edge patterning facilities with our experience creating novel chemistries for high-resolution inorganic resist. This collaboration further demonstrates our commitment to tackle the grand challenges in lithography faced by the semiconductor industry.”

“We’re looking forward to working with Inpria in our mutual effort to develop leading-edge resists and materials, and accelerate process availability for EUV pilot line manufacturing,” said Stefan Wurm, director of Lithography, SEMATECH. “This partnership will help strengthen the RMDC’s ability to address critical resist issues in advanced materials and accelerate the search for new solutions to our common technology challenges.”

“Further supporting Governor Andrew Cuomo’s declaration that New York is open for business, we are delighted to welcome Inpria as the newest global technology partner at CNSE’s Albany NanoTech Complex,” said Richard Brilla, CNSE VP, strategy, alliances and consortia. “The critical effort to enable advanced lithographic technologies for manufacturing will be enhanced by the addition of Inpria, which strengthens the CNSE-SEMATECH partnership and New York’s recognition as the worldwide hub for nanotechnology innovation and commercialization.”

The partnership will be based on SEMATECH’s extensive network of hardware and research expertise, semiconductor experience, and highly respected market leadership and on Inpria’s transformational semiconductor patterning materials and processes. SEMATECH’s RMDC will provide access to two micro-exposure tools (METs) as well as several metrology tools located at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the University at Albany and the University of California, Berkeley.

At the RMDC, leading resist and materials suppliers participate in focused, cooperative R&D with SEMATECH member companies. Together, the RMDC provides the hardware and research expertise required by materials suppliers and member companies to develop EUV resist processes that meet the stringent resolution, linewidth roughness, and sensitivity specifications needed for EUV insertion at member companies.