Looking for Truth in Conferences

Autumn is a busy conference time for the lithography world — one piled on top of another as we make our way through September and October. Sematech and partners will have back-to-back updates on immersion and EUV lithographies, with the International Symposium on Immersion Lithography Extensions Sept. 22–25 in The Hague, Netherlands, and the International Symposium on Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Sept. 28–Oct. 1 in Lake Tahoe, Calif. Then SPIE jumps right in with its Photomask Technology conference Oct. 7–10, in Monterey, Calif., as usual.

There are certainly a lot of challenges to be overcome within the lithography arena, but I've often wondered how it is that lithographers have any time to actually do the research that they seem to be sharing so often during the year. It seems like just yesterday (in fact, it was a couple of months ago) that we were debating the merits of having yet another lithography gathering added to the lineup: the International Workshop on EUV Lithography, which was held in June in Maui, Hawaii.

Note the word "workshop" in the title, not symposium. This was not Sematech duplicating its efforts, but rather an ex-Sematech employee (Vivek Bakshi, who wouldn't make the move with the other Sematech lithographers from Austin to Albany) who felt that the needs of the community were not being met by the current string of corporate-sponsored presentations geared toward letting everyone know that all was right in lithography land. Sure, EUV isn't where anybody had hoped it would be by now. But "tremendous progress has been made," and the remaining challenges are "just engineering problems." So Bakshi set out to solicit presentations that would tell where the progress has been made, but also where the work really needs to be done. In his opinion, the workshop was a success,¹ and he plans to organize another for next year.

Apparently, others thought it was a success as well. In a guest blog posting and subsequent commentary,² two conference attendees/presenters — Kenneth Goldberg of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Padraig Dunne of University College Dublin — both pointed to the need for more fundamental research and this EUV workshop's success in bringing more of those findings to the surface.

As Goldberg noted, a large number of the workshop presentations came from universities and national labs. But therein lies the quandary: Was that by design? If so, whose design? At Sematech's Litho Forum in May, there were mutterings of a boycott of the EUV workshop by several attendees. In a recent posting on his Litho Guru blog,³ Chris Mack noted that Sematech was not amused by one of its "excess minions" trying to compete with their lifeblood (although Bakshi contends that his new workshop is complementary rather than competitive). "They made it very clear that all suppliers receiving Sematech money would not participate in this renegade conference," Mack reported. "As such, the meeting became more academic and international, with virtually none of the 'we're on track, trust us' talks that the tool vendors always give at similar Sematech meetings."

It has become increasingly difficult to attend conferences and still avoid the plethora of corporate motivational speeches that are all too common. There is a need for more fundamental research — and the funding of such basic research — if many of the really tough problems are going to get solved. On the other hand, gone are the days when a technology candidate can stand on its technical merits, and corporate funding and economical viability are a fact of life. Speed is also an issue, and perhaps the companies with tools and materials already in the field are better equipped to get the latest solutions to market quicker, where the flash folks can gobble them up and ask for more.

In this issue, for example, we have an article from Applied Materials about spacer double patterning.⁴ It doesn't get much bigger corporate-wise than that in our world, and complaints from the field are that the technology is too expensive. But the fact is that the flash device makers need this technology and they need it now. Until something better comes along — whether that's EUV, cheaper double patterning, nanoimprint or another — spacer double patterning might be what gets the job done. But the background discussions and revelations need to continue and be brought to the forefront to keep making progress and finding the best solutions.