Thin Films / Nanolithography

By John Nugent
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Resselaer Polytechnic Institute

Thin Film Processing

There are many techniques for depositing thin films that are used in the semiconducting industry. The main techniques that are currently used are Chemical Vapor Deposition and Sputtering, which is a type of Physical Vapor Deposition. Nanoscale dimensions have long been used in semiconductor devices. The thickness of many of the thin films used are often below 1000 angstroms. The challenge however is in creating devices with spatial resolution below 100 nm. The challenge also exists in developing a process that is scalable to large scale manufacturing and to cut the cost of processing to reasonable levels.

A possible nanoscale structure for CMOS (complimentary metal oxide semiconductor) can be seen below in Figure 1 below. As can be seen on the device, there are features that have lateral dimensions that are below 100 nm. Take for instance the channel length, in this device, the channel length is approximately 60 nm wide