The Fine Print

…The panel discussion, that is. Maybe it’s my warped sense of humor, but when the Tuesday night panel of lithography for 22 nm was canceled, the sign indicating as such struck me as funny. So much of the conversation at SPIE Advanced Lithography last week was focused on how difficult it was going to be to get to the 22 nm node, given that EUV lithography will no longer be the answer many had hoped for. So when I heard that lithography for 22 nm was canceled, I thought, “Well, I guess they just gave up.”

The week seemed to be full of the one-liners that journalists dream of — the pithy quote that makes the story. So I thought I’d round up a few of the best gems from the week. If you attended the conference, I’d love to hear some of your favorites as well.

“It looks like an electromagnet that was dragged through a junk yard. It’s hard to believe something this ugly can do such beautiful work. The work is exquisite, but it ain’t gonna be there on time.”

— Bernie Meyerson, IBM Fellow, speaking at the Monday morning plenaries about the EUV alpha demo tools from ASML

“I don’t want to develop double patterning, but my boss makes me. But it’s killing me. And it’s killing my family, too.”

— Tae-Seung Eom, Hynix Semiconductor, noting that he doesn’t want to have to use double patterning in production, but he doesn’t know when EUV will be ready

“We’re going to have to get the most out of the photons we have, or we’re all going to have to find something else to do.”

— Harry Levinson, AMD Fellow and manager of strategic lithography technology at Advanced Micro Devices, speaking at Monday night’s BACUS panel

After AMD’s Harry Levinson acknowledged that EUV and double patterning mask issues are what keep him up at night, Mapper Lithography’s Bert Jan Kamperbeek quipped, “That’s what makes me sleep well at night.”

— At the BACUS panel, where Jan Kamperbeek espoused the benefits of maskless e-beam lithography

“Visibility really isn’t that good, and what we do see is really not that attractive.”

— Tracy Weed, director of marketing for the Silicon Engineering Group at Synopsys, who then proceeded to show the following photo:

“With all the DFM capabilities, we still don’t quite get it right. We run it in two factories, and get tremendously different results.”

— Lisa Su, senior vice president and CTO at Freescale Semiconductor, in her plenary talk on lithography and the embedded intelligence revolution

“Twenty years ago, they didn’t know that every kid must have an iPod and the president can’t be without email for five minutes.”

— Gilad Almogy, senior vice president and general manager for Applied Materials’ Display and Thin Film Solar Products Business Group, commenting on how nobody would’ve believed 20 years ago that fabs today could cost $5B

“This is working. You really need to think about joining our club before the membership fees get way too high.”

— Doug Resnick, vice president of template technology at Molecular Imprints Inc., about nanoimprint lithography

“Flash is killing this industry.”

— Will Conley, Freescale Semiconductor, in a conscious effort to contribute to my list of favorite quotes

“In chaos there lies opportunity.”

— The message inside the Dove chocolate I nicked from JSR’s show booth