Canon announced that by NIL nano-imprint technology, a 5-nanometer chip without using EUV mask aligner will be manufactured in 2025. Nano-imprint lithography is similar to printing technology. A chip can be manufactured by firing a circuit pattern on a special "imprint" and then printing the "imprint" on a silicon wafer. The difficulty of NIL nano-imprint technology lies in how to burn fine circuit patterns on the "imprint".
At present, Canon has certain technical strength, and cooperated with Iron Armor to apply NIL nano-imprint technology to the manufacture of some memory chips. It is said that there has been a breakthrough recently, so Canon is confident to make a 5-nanometer chip in 2025 without the need of EUV mask aligner.
Progress of Nano-imprint Technology in China
There are also some domestic companies studying NIL nano-imprint technology, but generally speaking, the domestic technology is relatively backward. Canon has 9 13 patents on NIL nano-imprint lithography technology, accounting for almost 100% of all patents, which shows its absolute advantage in this field. Although the number of patents in China is not as good as that in Canon, some companies have made some achievements.
For example, Rentian Micro-Nano Company has similar technologies in DOE, AR/VR diffractive optical waveguide, wire grid polarization, super lens, biochip, LED, microlens array and other fields. It is said that Ren Tian Micro Nano has achieved high-precision nano-imprint on the substrate area of 150/300mm, and the accuracy is better than 10nm. If this news is true, domestic NIL nano-imprint technology is expected to reach 5nm, thus reducing the dependence on mask aligner.