JMAR contracts MIT for its lithography program

JMAR Technologies Inc., a developer and supplier of precision systems for the semiconductor and nanotechnology industries, has initiated a contractual collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Prof. Henry I. Smith, Ph.D., the director of the NanoStructures Laboratory (NSL) at MIT, as part of its advanced semiconductor lithography program.

Under his contract, Smith will work closely with JMAR scientists and engineers to facilitate the introduction of JMAR's latest Collimated Plasma Lithography (CPL) system to the commercial marketplace. The CPL, which was developed with roughly 14 years of research, is designed to meet the semiconductor industry's short and long-term requirements for flexible, high-resolution lithography.

Earlier this year, Smith worked with JMAR's R&D division, to demonstrate CPL's ability to produce sub-80nm microcircuit features on silicon wafers and continues to play a key role in support of JMAR's advanced collimator development program. JMAR's first CPL system is scheduled to begin preliminary testing and demonstrations next month.

"I'm looking forward to jointly creating higher performing CPL systems with JMAR. Based on experimental results in my lab at MIT, I believe these systems can be extended to 25nm features in a practical commercial lithography system," Smith said. "There is no doubt in my mind that CPL will easily outperform EUV lithography at a tiny fraction of the development and operational costs."