PASADENA, Calif., May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded Optical Research Associates
(ORA(R)), Pasadena, CA, a $1.7 Million Advanced Technology Program (ATP) award
for the development of advanced lithography modeling algorithms. The ATP,
which selects recipients through an annual award cycle, provides cost-shared
funding to industry for high-risk research and development projects that have
the potential to spark important, broad-based economic benefits for the United
States.
This prestigious ATP award will fund ORA's "Fundamental Algorithms for
Direct Metric Tolerancing and Illumination Optimization" project, which will
focus on overcoming technical and modeling limitations in the current
generation of software used by industry to design and build semiconductor
devices.
ORA's Lithography Algorithms to Increase Semiconductor Manufacturing
Yields
Semiconductor manufacturers face pressure to continue trends in increased
scaling of integrated circuits and faster, more efficient chip processing.
ORA's research will focus on the development of revolutionary algorithms to
help the industry meet these challenges, both for technologies under
development now and the next-generation extreme ultraviolet (EUV) systems.
ORA's approach is two-pronged. First, ORA will develop direct-metric
tolerancing and compensator selection for projection optics. If successful,
this will allow accurate calculation of optical system performance based
directly on key performance metrics during the crucial process of developing
the fabrication and assembly tolerances and methods, rather than on
derivatives of these metrics (e.g., RMS wavefront error). Accurate
calculations of optical errors will help designers maximize the performance of
their equipment, effectively boosting manufacturing and product yields and
extending the lifetime of a particular technology node. Second, ORA will
develop algorithms for optimization of illumination systems in EUV
lithography. These new illumination optimization algorithms will help
designers collect and shape the output of EUV sources to achieve higher
throughput and more uniform illumination at the surface of the wafer, which is
essential to achieving commercially viable production rates in terms of wafers
per hour. ORA's goal for the EUV illumination optimization algorithms is to
improve product throughput or yield at the chip level by 10 to 25 percent.
"We are very pleased to receive this ATP award," said Robert Hilbert,
President and CEO of ORA. "We see this as a great opportunity for ORA to
develop advanced modeling techniques that will bridge the gap between
semiconductor manufacturing theory and technology. While this project and its
goals are extremely challenging, we believe that our development work will
provide necessary technical innovations and tools to enable substantial
productivity improvements in the semiconductor industry."
About ORA
With over 40 years of success as an industry leader, ORA is committed to
delivering innovative solutions to the optics and technology industries. With
its CODE V(R) and LightTools(R) software products, ORA is the world's leading
developer of optical software. ORA is also the largest independent supplier of
optical design and engineering services, with more than 4,200 completed
projects since the Company was founded in 1963. For more information, consult
the ORA Web site, http://www.opticalres.com.
About the Advanced Technology Program
The Advanced Technology Program, managed by the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, provides cost-shared funding to industry for high-
risk R&D projects with the potential to spark important, broad-based economic
benefits for the United States. The awards are made on the basis of a rigorous
peer-reviewed selection process. For more information, consult the ATP web
site, http://www.atp.nist.gov.
For more information contact David Brown, Vice President of Sales and
Marketing, Optical Research Associates, 3280 E. Foothill Blvd., Suite 300,
Pasadena, CA, 91107, telephone 626-795-9101, FAX 626-795-0184. Email:
service@opticalres.com, Web site: http://www.opticalres.com
SOURCE Optical Research Associates
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Related links:
http://www.opticalres.com
http://www.atp.nist.gov
CONTACT:
David Brown of Optical Research Associates,
+1-626-795-9101, FAX: +1-626-795-0184, info@opticalres.com
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