Nanolithography and its prospects as a manufacturing technology

TLDR: The resolution requirements for nanolithography can be satisfied; both devices and small-scale circuits with features well below 100 nm have been fabricated; however, other requirements such as adequate throughput (about 1 cm2/s) and a precision on feature edge placement of the order of 10 nm over 20 mm remain as serious challenges as mentioned in this paper.

Abstract: The resolution requirements for nanolithography can be satisfied; both devices and small‐scale circuits with features well below 100 nm have been fabricated. However other requirements such as adequate throughput (about 1 cm2/s) and a precision on feature edge placement of the order of 10 nm over 20 mm remain as serious challenges. Evolving technology may allow us to extend present‐day technology such as deep ultraviolet lithography towards 100 nm feature sizes. But to go below that size radically new approaches will probably be needed. Examples include x‐ray printing and some form of adaptive alignment in which relative distortion between mask and wafer is tracked.