Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President and CEO: Chihiro Kanagawa) and Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President and CEO: Naoki Adachi) have jointly developed new leading-edge photomask blanks for photolithography 45nm and 32nm. The newly developed technology greatly increases the attainable CD (critical dimension) precision of fine-pitch photomask patterning, resulting in being able to supply new leading-edge photomasks with higher accuracy and reliability. The two companies have already started offering sample shipments of these new blanks as well as photomask samples using these new blanks. They have been highly evaluated by the customers around the world.

The semiconductor industry has been actively pursuing technical development of finer-pitch lithography of 45nm and 32nm in order to improve the performance of digital appliances and mobile phones for offering higher-speed operation and lower electric power consumption. As the pitch of circuits becomes finer, integrated development of both processing materials and manufacturing equipment becomes indispensable because of the greater difficulty in developing semiconductor manufacturing processes. Therefore, photomasks, being the base of the circuit pattern templates, have become more important.
For the technical development of a new generation of cutting-edge photomasks, it is essential to improve the performance of photomask blanks, which are the base material of photomasks, and to establish a photomask manufacturing process suitable for them. It is important to quickly succeed in the development and supply of these products.
To meet these challenges, Shin-Etsu, the world’s No.1 supplier of semiconductor silicon wafers and a leading supplier of synthetic quartz substrates and other specialized products essential for photomask applications, such as EB resists, and Toppan, the world’s premier photomask company, have collaborated in the joint development of leading-edge photomask blanks. The two companies’ joint development project has already achieved success with the development of an important new product, as well as with the development in the photomask manufacturing process of new processes, very appropriate for the new photomask blanks, that makes higher precision fine-pitch photomask lithography possible.

As a result of these development successes, Shin-Etsu decided to enter into the business of supplying advanced photomask blanks, further enhancing its strong line-up of cutting-edge products in the semiconductor field.
At the same time, Toppan will strengthen its world-leading photomask business by supplying cutting-edge photomasks with higher accuracy and reliability.

Features of the Joint Development Project for the New Photomask Blank Product
In this partnership, Shin-Etsu and Toppan jointly reconsidered the existing technology in the photomask blanks from conceptual structure and, in consequence, novel structure of material for photomask blanks was invented. Shin-Etsu took charge of developing the materials of composition and structure that are capable of supporting leading-edge photomask blanks designs. Toppan was responsible for the evaluation of those new materials and development of new processes to make photomasks having extraordinary refined micro-properties.
Because the new photomask blanks have excellent dry-etching characteristics, Shin-Etsu and Toppan established new mask-making process technologies to enhance these superior dry-etching properties. The results of the joint-development project have made it possible to stably manufacture high-precision photomask products required for 45nm and 32nm node applications.
It is expected that by using these new advanced photomasks manufactured using these newly developed leading-edge photomask blanks, semiconductor device manufacturers will be able to reduce the development periods for optimizing the conditions to apply photomasks in designing their cutting-edge production processes.

Brief Profile of Shin-Etsu Chemical
Shin-Etsu is the top global manufacturer of silicon wafers. The company also supplies essential electronics materials needed in every phase of the semiconductor device manufacturing process from prefabrication to post-fabrication, such as. photo-resists, synthetic quartz substrates for photomasks, and molding compounds for semiconductor devices. Besides electronics materials, Shin-Etsu has broadly-based product strengths in a wide range of sectors in the global chemicals business, holding leading market shares in optical component materials and a very wide variety of organic and inorganic chemical products. For further details, please visit Shin-Etsu Chemical’s web site at: http://www.shinetsu.co.jp/

Brief Profile of Toppan Printing
Toppan is the world’s premier photomask company for advanced semiconductor devices, and by supplying these photomasks, it has contributed to semiconductor-device customers’ cutting-edge product development and manufacturing processes. Toppan has developed numerous worldwide production bases, assuring timely supply of its high-quality products to customers in Japan, the U.S., Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit Toppan’s web site at: http://www.toppan.co.jp/

*Detailed explanation about photomask and photomask blanks