Polymers in microlithography

other home appliances are now controlled by the tiny elec- tronic circuits of these microchips. ... Modern day computers owe their exis- tence to thes...
1 downloads 0 Views 4MB Size
Polymers in Microlithography S. Richard Turner and Robeti C. Daly Research Laboratories, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY 14650 Our lives are impacted daily by some aspect of the electronics revolution, which is based on a very small foundation-the microchip. Automobiles, televisions, and many other home appliances are now controlled by the tiny electronic circuits of these microchips. The microchip is a precisely patterned array of conductors, insulators, and semiconductors that can be made to perform a wide variety of electronic functions. Modern day computers owe their existence to these electronic wonders. High resolution video and still electronic cameras are being developed that use sophisticated light-sensitive versions of microchips for the "film". The reader is referred to two eeneral articles that describe the structure, function, and faGrication of microchips (I,2). Polymer chemistry, along with photochemistry, plasma chemistry, and inorganic chemistry, all play vital roles in makine the microimaees that lead to the features of these integrated electronic circuits. The current state-of-the-art, random-access memorv (HAM) chius have features in the 1 pm range. comparison to the diameter of human hair (70 pm) and of red blood cells (7.5 pm) puts in perspective the size of the tiny features that must be formed for these devices to function. The process of forming and developing the imaees on the semiconductor wafers is called microlithogra