LSU Chemical Engineering Professor, Team Working to Improve Semiconductor Manufacturing Process

Anthony Engler working in a clean room October 23, 2024 

BATON ROUGE, LA – Computer chips are virtually as essential to our daily lives as food, water, and air. They’re in everything from automobiles to smartphones, and yet there exists technological and manufacturing bottlenecks that continue to plague their production and improvement.

LSU Chemical Engineering Assistant Professor Anthony Engler and his team are working to address these issues by designing, synthesizing, and investigating new polymers and processes for high-resolution patterning in semiconductor manufacturing; and they’re doing it through a nearly $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation Future of Semiconductors (FuSe) Program.

“[Optical patterning] has always been the technological and manufacturing bottleneck,” Engler said. “It’s the most critical step in chip manufacturing. Optical patterning (or lithography) is the process of using light shining through a mask to selectively pattern areas of [light-sensitive polymer films] on top of a silicon wafer. The areas where light shines can be removed so that we can create a 3D relief image. We then use this pattern to guide/transfer other manufacturing processes so that we build and connect all of the components needed for a functional chip.

“Resolution limit in optical lithography is directly proportional to the wavelength of light used to make the patterns. Smaller wavelengths produce smaller feature sizes, which equals more transistors per chip that enable more powerful and faster chips. Advancements in lithography help us fabricate improved computer chips to power super computers, cell phones, etc.”

To that end, the semiconductor industry recently started utilizing Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) photons to generate the smallest, critical features Engler mentioned. His team’s project will develop new classes of EUV-sensitive polymers, investigate their fundamental interactions with photons and electrons, and co-design the materials with metrology and pattern transfer processes.

“EUV is a paradigm shift from the previous lithography systems because high-energy EUV photons interact with matter in a different manner, which is why we want to study how our new [photoresist materials] interact with high energy photons and electrons,” Engler said. “Photoresist materials had to become more sensitive to EUV photons because they are really difficult and expensive to produce. They also need to be processed as thinner films when you print smaller features, which requires other optimized properties for pattern transfer.”

As part of this project, new research infrastructure—an EUV exposure module/beamline—will be constructed at the LSU Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD) synchrotron. Not only will it be vital to this project, but Engler said it will help position LSU as a leader in the region.

“Industrial EUV lithography tools cost approximately $150 million each and are only purchased by advanced chip manufacturers or research consortiums (Intel, TSMC, Samsung, etc.),” Engler added. “Having the CAMD synchrotron makes LSU unique for easy, convenient access to EUV photons for academic or industrial researchers across the Southern US.”

One final aspect of the project is its outreach component to K-12 students in order to teach them more about chip manufacturing processes and give them hands-on experience in a scientific cleanroom at the LSU Nanofabrication Facility. These workshops will be extended to students from Louisiana community colleges and HBCUs that may not have access to similar facilities.

Working with Engler on this project are LSU Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Christopher Marvel, LSU Professor of Physics Phillip Sprunger, and LSU Associate Professor of Chemistry Revati Kumar.

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Contact: Joshua Duplechain
Director of Communications
225-578-5706
josh@lsu.edu