The demagnifying ion projection which was developed by IMS seems to be the most promising mask-based technique for this extreme pattern range. The most important arguments are a 10x or even 20x mask scale and the capability of resistless patterning for most insulating materials. The disadvantage of relatively small print fields is not of decisive importance because the future circuits have to be produced by chip composing for other reasons, too.
A processing scheme for the manufacturing of these stencil masks has been developed and experimentally proved. The main characteristics of this process are: use of silicon, application of only one X-ray exposure for self-aligned patterning of both sides of the silicon membrane and two plasma etching process steps.
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Ion Beam Lithography
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