The ultra-ambitious San Jose, California-based Cypress Semiconductor Corp is going to be one of the first chip companies in the world with an X-ray lithography system with which it hopes to fabricate integrated circuits with geometries of less than 0.3 micron. The company has ordered Series 3500 X-ray Stepper System from Hampshire Instruments Inc of Rochester, New York which at $4m is price-competitive with advanced deep ultraviolet optical steppers. Cypress wants the stepper to assess the technology for volume manufacturing, playing it off against excimer lasers and phase-shift masks. The Hampshire Series 3500 is price-competitive because it generates its own X-ray source using pulsed lasers rather than attaching to a compact synchrotron. The key advantage is in the price synchrotron systems start at $25m, but the downside is that the X-ray power is low, so only 20 to 40 wafers can be processed an hour. The other advantage is that it is about the same size as an optical system and fits a standard clean room, so it can be included in an existing optical lithography line. It is on 12 months delivery.
