How Lithography Enables Moore's Law

Moore's Law sets the pace for the electronics industry, delivering increasing computing capabilities at stable cost. This was driven by the steady pace of the increase of components in an integrated circuit (IC), which has to a large extent been enabled by optical lithography printing increasingly smaller electronic features on a silicon wafer. This chapter quantifies what the contribution of lithography to Moore's Law has been in the past and then discusses the future lithography options to extend Moore's Law into the future. Optical lithography has always been the workhorse for IC manufacturing. The next step for optical lithography is extreme ultraviolet (EUV), which will greatly simplify patterning and thus promises faster yield ramp and lower cost. The alternative patterning techniques, Directed self-assembly (DSA) still needs optical lithography to guide the patterns and should thus be seen as a complementary technology.