Fujifilm Launches Nanoimprint Resist Compatible with Nanoimprint Lithography

TOKYO, April 30, 2024 – FUJIFILM Corporation (President and CEO, Representative Director: Teiichi Goto) today announced the launch of the Nanoimprint Resist. The Nanoimprint Resist is a semiconductor material compatible with nanoimprint lithography semiconductor manufacturing technology and will be provided in Japan through FUJIFILM Electronics Materials Corporation (President: Shigeki Kobayashi), a core company in the electronic materials business.

Driven by high-speed, high-capacity communications through 5G/6G, the expansion of autonomous driving, and the spread of AI and the metaverse, demand for advanced semiconductors with higher performance is expected to increase. Last year, nanoimprint lithography was commercialized as a new manufacturing technology that can produce high-performance semiconductors at low cost and with low power consumption. Unlike photolithography, which is widely used in semiconductor manufacturing, nanoimprint lithography does not require development and rinse processes or complex optical systems for exposure. Nanoimprint lithography is expected to expand particularly in the advanced semiconductor segment as it offers the advantage of producing high performance semiconductors at lower cost and with lower power consumption than photolithography. 

The Nanoimprint Resist is newly designed with a molecular structure optimized for nanoimprint lithography. It was developed based on detailed analysis of the resist’s flow behavior during the imprinting process and the interaction of resist with wafer surfaces and masks, utilizing the knowledge and technology that the company has cultivated in the development of photoresists. The Nanoimprint Resist can quickly and uniformly fill the complex circuit patterns engraved on the mask, and transfer and form nanometer-scale circuit patterns in a short time. Furthermore, after curing by UV radiation, the Nanoimprint Resist shows excellent mold-releasing properties that do not cause loss of circuits even when the mask is removed at high speed. This enables the improvement of throughput - patterning throughput per hour - and yield improvement due to low defects, which have been issues for the practical application of nanoimprint lithography and contributes to cost reduction and energy saving in the manufacturing of advanced semiconductors.

In addition, by utilizing the technology Fujifilm has cultivated through the development of industrial inkjet printers, the company has realized a formulation design that allows the optimum amount of droplets to be applied to the wafer surface using an inkjet method. Compared to the spin-coating method^*1 used in the current manufacturing process, the amount of resist used can be reduced to approximately 1/100^*2. The Nanoimprint Resist uses a hydrocarbon compound as a release agent instead of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of synthetic chemicals whose use is increasingly regulated due to concerns over their impact on the environment and ecosystems. 

By providing its Nanoimprint Resist, Fujifilm will continue to promote the spread and expansion of new manufacturing technology that contributes to cost reduction and power saving in the leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing. 

Fujifilm provides photoresists, process chemicals, polyimides, and other process materials for semiconductor manufacturing from front-end to back-end processes, as well as Wave Control Mosaic (WCM) such as color filter materials for image sensors. As a semiconductor materials manufacturer providing one-stop solutions covering from leading-edge to legacy semiconductors, Fujifilm is working to meet the needs of customers and solve their issues. With the addition of the Nanoimprint Resist suitable for cutting-edge semiconductors to its product lineup, Fujifilm will continue to contribute to the further development of the semiconductor industry by offering these wide-ranging products and developing products compatible with new manufacturing technologies.

• *1 A method of creating a resist thin film by dropping resist onto a wafer and rotating the wafer at high speed.
• *2 Trial calculation by Fujifilm

• * Please note that the contents including the product availability, specification, prices and contacts in this website are current as of the date of the press announcement and may be subject to change without prior notice.