Lithography versus the device designer and processor

A COMMONLY HELD view of silicon IC manufacture pictures a more-or-less orderly one-way process in which functional circuit requirements are translated into a device layout by the designer, the layout is converted into a pattern on a mask by the lithographer, and the pattern is converted into a functioning device by the processor. Feedback, in this view, where it exists at all, consists typically of a single external loop via the test engineer who informs the designer that his circuit does not work. While this simplistic view has never been entirely adequate, it is becoming even less so as new device designs push or threaten to exceed the limits of current lithographic and processing technology. Instead, we see evolving a continuousfeedback process in which designer, lithographer and processor must continuously compromise to turn out the desired product. The panel will examine the relative roles and responsibilities of designer, lithographer and device processor in producing today's and tomorrow's product and explore the communication across the interfaces involved.