Japanese companies design multifunction minifab tools

Toshiba, TEL, and a new Japanese national project aim to come up with a bet ter way to quickly turn out small volumes of complex systems chips at low c ost, by rethinking the entire semiconductor production process. Their propo sed minifab replaces conventional lithography, deposition, and traditional cleanroom management with direct-write stencil ion implantation, multipurpo se fast thermal processing, scan coating, immersion plating, and controlled -environment boxes.