Transistor density has been increasing steadily, as has been described by “Moore’s Law”, with feature sizes of 45 nanometers currently in production. The most common form of nano-manufacturing in the semiconductor industry is photo lithography. Reducing feature size, using photo lithography, is limited in part by diffraction of light. One way of overcoming the diffraction limitation is by using a mask design technique to correct for diffraction known as optical proximity correction (OPC). Alternative nano-manufacturing techniques such as nano-imprint lithography, immersion lithography and plasmonic imaging lithography, to name a few, are being studied. Imprint lithography is a technique where pattern transfer occurs by physically pressing the mask and wafer together and therefore not limited by diffraction.
(see Shalom's website for more)
