The poor man’s solution to leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing

In 2015, around Christmas time, researchers from Sweden’s Lund University got an unexpected result. Having attempted to decrease the diameter of nanowires sticking out of a surface, the structures had not only shrunk, they had also split in two. For every nanopillar, there were now two thinner ones. In other words, the researchers had created a finer-pitch pattern without using lithography.

It didn’t take long for lead researcher Jonas Sundqvist to realize that this was something special. With plenty of experience in the semiconductor industry on his CV, Sundqvist was well aware of the importance of double patterning. At the time, it was effectively chipmakers’ only option to continue CMOS scaling while EUV lithography was still being industrialized. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” says Sundqvist.