Introduction/Description
Acreo's laser writer, a Heidelberg DWL 400, is designed for photomask manufacturing and direct patterning on planar substrates. It is also equipped with inspection and metrology features. The laser interferometer controlled stage can handle substrates with up to 16" x 16" active write area, and has a lateral resolution of 125 nm.
The exposure laser beam has, with our current optics, a spot size of 2 µm, which thereby sets the limit for the feature size to be drawn. A scan deflectormicro-sweeps the modulated beam in one direction, while the stage moves continuously in the other direction, hence scanning the whole structure. Each scan stripe is determined by the CAD data. With present settings, a 5" mask takes about 45 minutes to expose.
A robot feeder system, capable of handling batch exposures is attached to the DWL 400. This enables, together with software features, exposures of whole mask sets without interruption. All the devices; stage, lasers, feeder etc, are housed inside a HEPA filtered climate chamber (flow box), providing a clean and stable environment.
- Preferred data format: GDSII
- Standard mask sizes: 5", 7", and 9"
- Smallest feature size: 3 µm
- Glass quality: Soda Lime
Link to HIMT (Heidelberg Instruments)
Laser data
| Laser |
Class |
Wavelength (nm) |
Output power (mW) |
| Exposure |
3B |
442 |
120
|
| Interferometer |
2 |
663 |
<1 |
CAD formats
CAD Conversion Station