Optical lithography: Introduction

The dramatic increase in performance and cost reduction in the electronics industry are attributable to innovations processes. The speed and performance of the chips, their associated packages, and, hence, the computer systems are dictated by the lithographic minimum printable size. Lithography, which replicates a pattern rapidly from chip to chip, wafer to wafer, or substrate to substrate, also determines the throughput and the cost of electronic systems. A lithographic system includes exposure tool, mask, resist, and all of the processing steps to accomplish pattern transfer from a mask to a resist and then to devices. For further reading, we suggest several excellent reviews of the optical lithography of integrated circuit fabrication.