JMAR to Develop X-Ray Components

Staff -- Semiconductor International, 4/1/1999

JMAR Technologies (San Diego, Calif.) has been awarded a $500,000 contract to design, build and evaluate advanced X-ray optical components for its X-ray lithography program. The contract, issued by the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Under the contract, JMAR will receive leading-edge resonance reflection collimators recently developed under the advanced X-ray optics program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, Livermore, Calif.). JMAR will integrate the collimators with its PXS X-ray source and evaluate overall efficiency and resolution capabilities of the resulting lithography process.

The company plans to demonstrate the combination as a source for X-ray lithography that will be far smaller and much less expensive than the electron synchrotrons. The company also plans to scale up the power of its PXS source and meet "several commercially significant demonstration milestones" before the end of the year.