Nanoimprint lithography for chips
Instead of projecting a circuit pattern with light, nanoimprint lithography presses a mask carrying the pattern into a coating on the wafer, like a stamp.
Canon, 26 Sept 2024How far from your life: You can get it now, though it may not be common yet.
Company-reportedFrom lab to your life
Why it’s on step 4
- 1Lab discovery
- 2Working prototype
- 3Real-world testing
- 4Approved or on sale
- 5Everyday life
The rule
A regulator approved or cleared it where approval applies (the FDA, the EMA, a CE mark), or it is sold to the public or to customers beyond a trial.
- Canon released the FPA-1200NZ2C, the first commercial chipmaking system to use nanoimprint lithography. Canon, 26 Sept 2024
The short version
What you need to know
- Why it matters
Canon says it can print patterns equivalent to the 5-nanometer chip generation, with lower power use and cost than projecting light.
Canon, 26 Sept 2024- How small
It can print lines as narrow as 14 nanometers.
Canon, 26 Sept 2024- Is it really nano?
Truly nano
It works by physically stamping patterns measured in nanometers.
Canon, 26 Sept 2024- Who’s behind it
Canon
On the record
Every step, dated
Newest first. Company-reported means the only source so far is the company itself.
- Customer samplesCompany-reported
Canon shipped a nanoimprint system to the Texas Institute for Electronics, a chipmaking consortium in Texas.
Canon, 26 Sept 2024 - On saleCompany-reported
Canon released the FPA-1200NZ2C, the first commercial chipmaking system to use nanoimprint lithography.
Canon, 26 Sept 2024
Who makes it
The companies
- 7751TSECanon
The first company to sell a nanoimprint lithography machine for making chips.
We track:Nanoimprint
Sources
Where every line comes from
Each source with the passage, word for word, that backs what we wrote.
- Canon, 26 Sept 2024
the new product does it by pressing a mask imprinted with the circuit pattern into the resist on the wafer like a stamp.
More in Chips and computing
- Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithographyStep 5 · EverydayChip patterns are printed with light, a little like projecting a photo onto a silicon wafer.
- Gate-all-around nanosheet transistorsStep 4 · On saleA transistor is a switch: a gate turns the flow of current through a channel on and off.
- Carbon nanotube transistorsStep 2 · PrototypeCarbon nanotubes are sheets of carbon atoms rolled into tubes.
- Atom-thin 2D semiconductor chipsStep 1 · LabSome materials can be made just a few atoms thick, like sheets of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2).