Europe to address Directed Self Assembly Lithography

An EU-funded consortium of industrial and academic collaborators will establish a dedicated material manufacturing facility. The project will allow the production of block copolymers to meet rigorous standards, required for their use as nanolithographic templates in industry.

PLACYD brings together leading researchers and industries to allow the integration of synthesis through to wafer scale production and system/device characterisation for the first time. Part of FP7 and funded by the ENIAC Joint Undertaking, this project will be led by Arkema for three years. It aims to develop and bring DSA materials to industrial maturity, as well as processes and integration schemes. It will contribute to establishing specific DSA design rules and developing specific software for device manufacture. Metrology and inspection requirements in the sub-10nm range will be defined and implemented in next generation tools. A full integration demonstration activity will be performed at CEA-Leti to assess the efficiency of the whole solution.

With the help of the PLACYD Consortium partners, a dedicated materials line will be set up on the Arkema Research Center site in Lacq, France, with the aim of delivering precisely defined, high purity, and highly reproducible materials on an industrial scale in order to enable supply to the semiconductor industry. New materials will also be developed and optimised for next generation electronic chips.