SAN FRANCISCO—E-beam supplier Vistec Lithography Inc. has joined forces with research group CEA/Leti and startup Direct2Silicon (D2S) in a collaboration focused on refining and validating advanced design-for-e-beam (DFEB) technology for the 45- and 32-nm nodes, the companies said Monday (Jan. 12).

Over the next 12 months, CEA/Leti will manufacture test chips using a combination of D2S' DFEB design and software capabilities and the high-resolution e-beam direct-write lithography equipment from Vistec, the companies said. The goal of this collaboration is to print 45- and 32-nm circuits using Vistec's SB3054 system installed at CEA/Leti, they said.

Chip makers have for years chased the idea of direct-write e-beam tools, which write patterns directly onto a wafer, because of the huge cost savings that would be associated with eliminating or reducing photomasks. But the slow throughput of direct-write tools has been the bottleneck. A number of companies have been developing high-speed direct-write e-beam tools.

According to DS2 (San Jose, Calif.) its DFEB technology employs character or cell projection technology to "re-write the throughput rules" around e-beam direct write.

"DFEB is an innovative, new approach to the old problem of boosting e-beam throughput while enhancing accuracy," said Laurent Pain, lithography laboratory manager at CEA/Leti, in a statement. "We are looking forward to this collaboration to validate accuracy and throughput goals at the 45- and 32-nm nodes using the Vistec SB3054 system in tandem with D2S' advanced DFEB solution."

D2S says its technology has been in development by a team of EDA veterans since 2002. The company is backed by Benchmark Capital and strategic corporate partners such as EDA vendor Cadence Design Systems Inc. and automated test equipment house Advantest Corp.