Photolithography: The Art of Writing with Light

What if we could etch features smaller than a virus onto silicon, pushing computing power to unimaginable new limits?

That's the ongoing revolution of photolithography.

Photolithography is the core technology enabling modern electronics, essentially "printing" microscopic circuit patterns onto silicon wafers using light.

A wafer is coated with photoresist, a light-sensitive material. A patterned mask acts as a stencil, and intense light (typically UV or Extreme Ultraviolet - EUV) shines through, selectively changing the photoresist.

The exposed areas are then developed, creating a protective pattern. This pattern guides subsequent etching or material deposition steps, building up complex 3D circuits layer by layer.

Recent breakthroughs, particularly in EUV lithography led by companies like ASML, use incredibly short wavelengths (13.5 nm) to print features as small as 2 nm, allowing billions of transistors on a single chip.

This relentless miniaturization drives everything from AI to advanced sensors, promising a future where computing power is vastly more integrated and transformative in our daily lives.

Learn more: https://www.asml.com/en/technology/lithography-principles

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Image: Ai Generated.

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