Nanoimprint lithography won’t compete with EUV anytime soon

Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) won’t be able to compete with EUV lithography in the foreseeable future. A handful of issues “without any clear way forward” stand in the way of a debut in leading-edge chip manufacturing, according to a report by Semianalysis.

NIL involves pressing a mask imprinted with the circuit pattern on a resist-coated wafer area, like a stamp. The technique was once considered a potential successor to DUV immersion lithography, but the semiconductor industry threw its weight behind EUV instead.