Brewer Science Inc., Rolla, Mo., and Arkema France Corp. announce achievement of pilot-scale production of high-quality directed self-assembly materials using Arkema’s block copolymer technology and Brewer Science’s manufacturing expertise.
This milestsone is a step toward bringing DSA from a research level up to mainstream semiconductor production. These initial pilot-scale DSA materials are based on polystyrene-polymethylmethacrylate (PS-PMMA) and are being used to support customer DSA process evaluations.
“We have progressed more quickly toward this milestone through our partnership with Arkema than either company could have done on its own,” said Dr. Daniel Sullivan, director of Brewer Science’s semiconductor Research & Development department. Dr. Sullivan added, “We expect to similarly speed up customer process testing moving forward.” The new pilot-scale capabilities combined with Arkema’s proven BCP blending process will help speed up DSA process development by allowing for faster creation of many different BCP materials that can be evaluated in a semiconductor production environment.
“In addition to its intrinsic flexibility, the BCP blending technology is demonstrating better performance with respect to defects and DSA kinetics. This allows for faster process development as a wider range of process parameters can be investigated by the blended BCPs,” said Dr. Ian Cayrefourcq, Scientific Director of Arkema. Both companies will continue to combine their strengths to make DSA a reality for next-generation lithography applications.
