Merck joins SPIE Advanced Lithography 2016 under its US business EMD Performance Materials after the successful integration of AZ Electronic Materials in May 2014. The annually held conference is taking place at the San Jose Marriott and San Jose Convention Centre in USA from February 21-25, 2016.
This year, Merck is bringing new advancement in materials solutions for next generation lithography, such as Directed Self-assembly (DSA) and Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) technologies. The company’s strong polymer synthesis capability, using anionic polymerization techniques combined with accumulated process and formulation expertise, has led to a leadership position in DSA. This includes formulations with high chi Block Copolymers (BCPs), Patterning Material by Epitaxy (PME) and Neutral Layer for DSA (NLD) materials for Surface Modification for Advanced Resolution Technology (SMART), Liu-Nealey (LiNe) flow, and other evolving DSA processes.
In the EUV space, Merck’s Extreme™ rinse materials tackles the resist collapse issues during the development process by widening the process window while reducing overall defect levels. Newly developed materials enable planar surface by using a spin coat process on topographical substrates. These innovative materials address residue issues during etch, as well as critical dimension (CD) control issues using current lithography materials. The company also offers novel chemical shrink materials for negative tone development (NTD) processing. The NTD shrink material offers tunable CD shrink capability and can be an effective solution to improve pattern roughness and CD uniformity.
Merck aims to become the key solutions provider for semiconductor applications through its many acquisition activities in 2015. This includes acquiring SAFC Hitech, the leading provider of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) and Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) precursors. SAFC Hitech was the high tech material business of the Sigma Aldrich Group acquired by Merck in end of 2015, and now has become part of the IC Materials Business Unit in the organization. Ormet Circuits Inc., a start-up company with key technologies for lead-free conductive pastes for packaging applications, also joins Merck and has added strength to its advanced packaging space.
Image Source : Merck
