ST. FLORIAN, Austria, Oct. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — EV Group (EVG), a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today introduced its SmartNIL™ large-area nanoimprint lithography (NIL) process. Available on all EV Group NIL platforms, including mask aligners as well as the industry benchmark EVG^®720 and newly available EVG^®7200 UV-NIL systems, SmartNIL provides a low-cost, large-area and high-volume-manufacturing solution for a variety of advanced devices, including:

• Photonic-based devices such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), lasers and photovoltaics
• Micro arrays and nano-devices for medical devices and bioengineered applications
• Advanced storage media, including newly emerging forms of non-volatile memory (NVM) 

“SmartNIL is built on more than 15 years of NIL experience at EVG that includes the largest installed base of NIL systems worldwide, and is the only NIL technology currently used in high-volume manufacturing on substrates up to 200 mm today,” stated Paul Lindner, executive technology director at EV Group. “With our new EVG7200 UV-NIL system, which has industry-leading resolution down to 20 nm in volume production, EVG brings the advanced soft stamp and imprint capability of SmartNIL to larger substrates and smaller geometries. This enables our customers to achieve even greater cost-of-ownership (CoO) benefits and realize the full manufacturing potential of nanoimprint lithography.”

Benefits of SmartNIL

• Photonic devices, such as photovoltaics, LEDs, laser diodes and optical sensors, rely on the nano-scale manipulation of light to achieve optimal performance. This light manipulation can be tailored through the use of nano-scale structures such as photonic crystals, gratings, phase-shift structures and wave guides
• In bioengineered applications, nano-scale manufacturing processes are a requirement, since most biologic events begin at the nanometer scale
• For both applications, traditional writing methods for producing nano-scale features either have extremely low throughput and, therefore, cannot be easily scaled up for cost-efficient production (such as electron-beam writing) or have sufficient throughput but are too cost-prohibitive, such as stepper systems for optical lithography
• Certain photonic and bioengineered applications can also realize greater throughput and CoO benefits from the ability to pattern 3D structures or different height levels in a single step—which can best be accomplished with a soft-stamp UV-NIL approach
• SmartNIL coupled with EV Group’s EVG720 system (for 150-mm substrates), which is in use at multiple leading device manufacturers’ fabs, and the new EVG7200 system (for 200-mm substrates) provides the optimal combination of high resolution, high-alignment accuracy and high throughput in a cost-effective platform required for volume production for photonic and bioengineered device applications

Key SmartNIL Technology Features

• Large full-field imprint area (up to 200 mm)
• Fastest full-substrate UV-NIL solution for high-volume-manufacturing applications (>40 substrates per hour for 200-mm substrates)
• Integrated soft stamp fabrication technology reduces tool footprint and provides fast replication (less than 10 minutes versus 24 hours or more with competing technologies)
• Enables patterning on highly topographical structures; less sensitive to bowed and warped wafers
• Optimized releasing properties extend the lifetime of the stamp
• Self-cleaning properties reduce particle contamination and improve overall processing yields
• Room-temperature process avoids thermal mismatch and long-range structure distortion for improved alignment accuracy

About EV Group (EVG)

EV Group (EVG) is a leading supplier of equipment and process solutions for the manufacture of semiconductors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), compound semiconductors, power devices and nanotechnology devices. Key products include wafer bonding, thin-wafer processing, lithography/nanoimprint lithography (NIL) and metrology equipment, as well as photoresist coaters, cleaners and inspection systems. Founded in 1980, EV Group services and supports an elaborate network of global customers and partners all over the world. More information about EVG is available at www.EVGroup.com.