SkyWater Technology, the trusted technology realization partner, and Multibeam Corporation, the maskless lithography technology leader, today disclosed a partnership to deploy Multibeam’s Multicolumn Electron-Beam Lithography (MEBL) system into SkyWater’s newly expanded fabrication facility in support of SkyWater’s roadmap to advance its manufacturing capabilities and accelerate growth. The ground-breaking MEBL system, set to launch in 2021, will be capable of full-wafer, all-maskless patterning at 45 nm and beyond.
“As a Trusted Foundry, we take great pride in meeting stringent security and quality criteria,” said Thomas Sonderman, President/CEO of SkyWater. “We seek innovative solutions that can add high value while reducing manufacturing cost and cycle times; MEBL’s deployment will benefit all of our customers, both government and commercial. Further, this key capability will support SkyWater’s pursuit of a unique foundry offering by combining the flexibility and agility of 200 mm manufacturing with the advanced performance of 45 nm process technology.”
According to David K. Lam, Chairman/CEO of Multibeam, SkyWater represents a showcase customer that can take full advantage of MEBL’s high-mix production capabilities. He noted that MEBL greatly simplifies patterning processes, adding, “In product development, MEBL cuts prototyping cost and time because ‘respins’ no longer require a new set of masks. Since all e-beam columns in our MEBL system write independently and in parallel, they empower production of multi-project wafers and chips larger than the typical optical field of view. Our versatile MEBL system design has a throughput capability that extends significantly beyond single e-beam approaches to support volume manufacturing.”
Security Lithography
As a proprietary maskless platform, MEBL can be applied to ensure “security lithography” by embedding unique security information into each IC during routine wafer fabrication. Multibeam’s Secure Chip ID enables chip traceability throughout its lifecycle as well as the confirmation of its unique identity and provenance. Technology development is well under way for the MEBL platform to hardcode unique chip ID into each IC during fabrication – a most secure and cost-efficient way to thwart IC counterfeiting.