Principles of Lithography [Hardcover]

This is an excellent book for engineers, whether in photolithography or not, to acquire an overview and understanding of modern deep sub-micron photolithography and the challenges microlithographers face. It is well written and easy to read. Levinson takes you through the entire process of lithography step by step with both the mathematics involved, but also, an intuitive explanation of what the technical issues involved are. The drawings done for the figures are done well and easily understood and printed with clarity. As for photos used for figures in the book, they are also well done, and of the proper brightness and contrast so that they are easy to view and comprehensible. They are not like some books, where you wonder if the illustration was a fifth generation photocopy or just incomprehensible.

Levinson also includes a chapter on metrology. If you are producing a microlithographic pattern you need to be able to measure it, and critical dimensions in lithography are not dues ex machina.

The book has problem exercises at the end of each chapter to allow the reader to test themselves on what they have learned. I also recommend working out many of the equations as an exercise.

Levinson also doesn't neglect the historical development of the practice of lithography. There is an explanation on why early lithography tended to have high overexposure and then went to 1:1 imaging and issues driving this. Also, there is a good chapter on the claims in the 1980s that optical lithography would not get past 1 micron resolution, and why this subsequently didn't prove to be true. Levinson bravely also writes up a section on the future limits of lithography and in a few years we will see if he was right. Regardless whether he will turn out to be right or not, it is an excellent explanation of the challenges involved. I think that there is an under appreciation that of the tremendous obstacles overcome in the advancement of microlithography. It isn't an automatic step down, and we do face the prospect that maybe 65 nm or 45 nm or 32 nm or 22nm will be the end.

Next generation lithography is not neglected either and Levinson reviews the technologies and challenges for each of them.

The book is a worthy successor to David Elliot's handbook on photolithography. (Perhaps some of you will regard that as paleolithography.) It is not expensive and should be on your book shelf.

I wrote a supplementary paper in WORD for this book. I work out some of the equations in more detail than the text making it easier to understand. There are some errors in the text which I identify and provide the correction. Additionally, I added some supplementary information not in the book. If you would like a copy email me. <esebesta@tx.rr.com>.

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