HP Licenses Cookie-Cutter Circuits

The company's patented process for stamping out semiconductors could be finding its way into commercial applications soon, thanks to a deal with another California company.

Hewlett-Packard has an unlikely idea for mass-producing semiconductors the same way CDs and phonograph records are made: stamping them out. The company’s patented nanoimprint lithography (NIL) process literally stamps out patterns of wires less than 50 atoms wide on a substrate. Although the technology isn’t brand new, HP announced Wednesday that it would be licensing the intellectual property to Nanolithosolutions, Inc., which could make the products of NIL more commercially available.

Nanolithosolutions has developed a module that fits into a conventional mask aligner, a common tool in semiconductor manufacturing. Using the module, manufacturers can inexpensively convert the traditional machines to high-resolution NIL machines.

“By building on HP’s extensive research in nanoimprint lithography, we believe we have a tool that will enable reliable, repeatable processes for exploring biochips, photonics chips and many other applications,” said Bo Pi, chief executive officer of Nanolithosolutions, in a statement. “We believe this will be an extremely useful tool for academic and commercial users worldwide because it will be about a tenth the cost of current technology.”

 HP researchers have used NIL in the laboratory to produce circuits with wires as narrow as 15 nanometers, which they say is one-third the width of the same wires in most commercially available circuits. Besides being compact, the products of NIL are also expected to be affordable, since they can be rapidly stamped out in mass.