Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/09

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Leica Users digest V6 #3
From: "William Davis" <wishda@weblnk.net>
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 01:28:40 -0500

Yet Nikon and Canon still manufacture machines called steppers that
feature a lens that can focus down to a micron. They are used to etch
microchips.

Whenever you see news footage of people in bunny suits making
microchips at Intel, they are usually working near a machine with a
Canon or Nikon logo. I have heard these machines described as some of
the most precise pieces of equipment made by mankind.

As someone else pointed out on another photo forum, both Nikon and
Canon make the majority of profits from the sale and upkeep of these
machines. It would not be far off to say they are stepper
manufacturers who make photo equipment for nostalgic reasons.

- -----------------------------
>
>Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1999 17:50:43 -0800
>From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
>Subject: [Leica] Re: [ OFF TOPIC ] photolithography
>
>No. Back in the old days, when computer (logic) chips were made from
masks,
>quite often laid out by hand, they were photographed (layer by layer)
with
>a special process camera, reducing them a million times or more,
using
>special optics that were designed entirely for the green spectrum,
and
>appropriate lights were used to illuminate the master. Of course,
that was
>then. Now it is all done via computer. Design on a Sun workstation,
route
>and tape-out via computer programs, directly to the fab process.
Think of
>it like the new printing presses that don't need plates. Use a
digital
>camera to photograph a product, Page Maker to lay it out, trapp, etc,
then
>send the o/p file directly to the press which electrostatically
generates
>plate images from the digital file. No film, camera, separations,
>halftones, etc... (the old stuff) involved.
>
>Basically, semiconductor photolithography equipment was a niche
market,
>which is now non-existent.
>
>Jim
>
>At 08:34 PM 1/9/99 -0500, you wrote:
>>At 17:19 -0800 09/01/99, Berg Na wrote:
>>[ . . . ] Canon and Nikon are currently
>>the only major suppliers of semiconductor photolithography equipment
>>with unmatched resolution capabilities.
>>[ . . . ]
>> Though off topic, what do these machines serve for ?
>> Something like Linotronic ???
>> Sorry, I have to learn somewhere...
>>
>> AJQ
>>
>>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>
>>   Before you judge me,
>>   try hard to love me,
>>   look within your heart then ask,
>>   have you seen my childhood.
>>              Michael Jackson
>>