Innovalight specialty PV materials company gets acquired by DuPont after successful integration of its silicon-ink screen-printed selective emitter (SE) into mulitple customer crystalline-silicon production lines.

Prof. Masato Shibuya was awarded the JSAP Takuma Award 2011 for invention of the phase-shift mask (PSM) and opening the field of advanced lithography, as reported by independent PSM inventor Marc Levenson.

SPIE Advanced Lithography 2011 showed few new tools or techniques, but many new materials and integration tricks to extend 193i into double-patterning for IC HVM, while EUV and DSA developments continue according to expert Dr. M. David Levenson of BetaSights.

Through-silicon vias (TSV) by IBM and Semtech for ADC/DSP solutions use copper and deep-trench capacitors for RF applications; IEDM 2010 papers show TSV in active chips progressing slowly.

Xilinx 28nm FPGA Virtex-7 uses TSMC 65nm multi-level-metal (MLM) and through-silicon-via (TSV) Si-interposer for 2M gate and ARM-core integration product family.

IEDM 2010 best hints at 22nm node fab tech alternate-channel materials, dual- and tri-gate transistors, and RF, MEMS, lab-on-chip, graphene, analog, memory ReRAM results.

Direct-write, maskless, lithography using e-beams is not ready for 22nm node IC manufacturing, and the SPIE BACUS presentations show EbDW issues include data transfer and inspection.

TSV for 3D integration of heterogeneous ICs used in interposers first, as shown at SEMICON/West, IMAPS, IEDM and companies like ASE, Alchimer, Suss, EVG, Novellus, Vertical Circuits, and IBM.

E-beam Initiative adds four members and starts on Design for E-beam (DFEB) for mask makng for ICs to reduce mask costs at 22nm and below.

HP and Hynix JVA for ReRAM chips, based on HP titania memristor as covered by BetaSights April 2010, with R&D fab in Korea to start work on integration on 300mm silicon wafers for 2013 IC chips