In a milestone for the global semiconductor industry, Multibeam
Corp. today introduced the MB platform, a first-of-a-kind
Multicolumn E-Beam Lithography (MEBL) system built for mass
production. The fully automated precision-patterning system will be
used for rapid prototyping, advanced packaging, high-mix
production, chip ID, compound semiconductors, and other
applications. SkyWater Technology will use the system for early
concept prototyping and rapid production of microchips.
Multibeam’s platform revolutionizes e-beam lithography (EBL)
with new productivity advantages, while enabling high resolution,
fine features, wide field of view, and large depth of focus. The
chief productivity driver is the novel architecture which employs
multiple miniature columns that operate individually and in
parallel, with an advanced control system directing the beams to
achieve maximum accuracy, quality, and speed. Throughput is more
than 100 times greater than conventional EBL systems, making the MB
platform the highest productivity high-resolution maskless
lithography system on the market. It gives manufacturing leaders a
breakthrough solution to enable rapid development of new IC
designs, faster time to market, and accelerated IC innovation.
The platform was developed by a team of semiconductor equipment
and patterning technology experts led by industry pioneer, Dr.
David K. Lam. It is the first EBL system designed from the ground
up for volume production, the first one innovated in Silicon
Valley, and built by the first US lithography company to emerge in
decades. With the launch, Multibeam becomes the sole domestic
supplier of EBL technology.
“We are thrilled to introduce the MB platform and proud to send
our first production system to SkyWater,” said Multibeam’s Chairman
and CEO, Dr. David K. Lam. “The semiconductor industry’s growth
continues to be fueled by exciting new applications, with advanced
lithography technologies enabling endless innovations. At the same
time, there is soaring growth in markets like AI and edge
computing, where the enablers include purpose-built silicon and
advanced packaging, and the manufacturers’ priorities are rapid
cycles of learning and cost-effective, seamless transition to
production for faster time to market. For these emerging markets,
the MB platform offers a complementary lithography solution. With
powerful productivity advantages, it unleashes EBL’s full
precision-patterning capacity and expands the range of lithography
options available to IC leaders.”
The launch marks Multibeam’s shift from development stage to
producer of high-productivity Multicolumn E-Beam Lithography
systems. While EBL is valued for its patterning capabilities, low
throughput constrained its capacity to take emerging applications
from R&D to production. To unlock the potential, Multibeam
re-innovated EBL leveraging well-established technologies to reduce
risk.
As the MB platform evolved, new applications were emerging with
technical, economic, and time-to-market imperatives that could be
effectively addressed by a maskless lithography solution.
“This dynamic affirmed our conviction that an EBL system,
re-engineered for high productivity, could enable applications at
advanced nodes for the first time,” said Multibeam President, Dr.
Ken MacWilliams. “The performance advantages are especially
compelling in advanced packaging where our system can enable
improvements in chip-to-chip power, along with bandwidth and
latency. This is helping to drive a new technology inflection that
the industry is starting to call ‘advanced integration’ -- where
new chip-to-chip interconnects can achieve comparable performance
to on-chip interconnects. We are proud to enable this inflection
with a production-proven lithography solution, and confident that
our system will help chipmakers seize profitable new market
opportunities,” said MacWilliams.
EBL: Re-Innovated for Ultra-High
Productivity
The team designed the platform from the outset for volume
production, and more than 40 patents protect the innovations. In
addition to the multicolumn vector-writing architecture which
drives productivity, accuracy, and speed, the platform offers auto
wafer loading and alignment from wafer cassette to the exposure
process in the system. Uptime is optimized by an automated vacuum
recovery system, along with a speedy column replacement process and
calibration technology. The advanced automation capabilities reduce
operator requirements and further contribute to the system’s
cost-of-ownership benefits.
As a maskless lithography solution, the platform offers
additional advantages. Where it can take weeks to develop optical
masks, designs can be written in hours with the MB platform. This
gives manufacturers greater IC design latitude, while reducing
costs and accelerating time to market. To further enable design
flexibility, the platform leverages technology from EDA leader,
Synopsys, to generate write recipes, which lets customers achieve
their most intricate patterns. With a powerful built-in data prep
system, developed in conjunction with Synopsys, the system writes
the chip layouts directly onto wafers without masks.
Finally, with a compact footprint the system has lower power
requirements and needs less fab space. It is modular by design,
with modules easily added as needed for new applications or even
higher throughput. In addition, it is fully self-contained and
requires no special environment, which further reduces costs. The
system is available in 150mm, 200mm and 300mm configurations.
About Multibeam
Multibeam helps semiconductor leaders accelerate chip innovation
with the industry’s first Multicolumn E-Beam Lithography (MEBL)
system built for volume production. The technology enables
applications like rapid prototyping, advanced packaging and
heterogeneous integration, chip ID and traceability, high-mix
quick-turn manufacturing, compound semiconductors, and more.
Headquartered in Silicon Valley, the company is privately held and
led by a team of semiconductor equipment and patterning technology
experts. For more information, visit www.multibeamcorp.com.
Multibeam executives will be at SEMICON West 2024 to share
further details on the MB platform. The annual semiconductor
equipment and materials conference will be held at Moscone Center
in San Francisco, July 9-11. The company can be found at booth
#5558 located in the North Hall.
Media/Analyst Contact
Shani Williams; email: swilliams@multibeamcorp.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/1368572b-f724-4502-bf3c-96245ea1328f