The semiconductor manufacturing equipment business is on the verge of dealing with important challenges. The relentless increase in the cost of equipment has led to a situation in which the amortized cost of this equipment over the number of chips produced now rivals the current price of the chips themselves. Many experts are now suggesting -- and only half in jest -- that within a few years, the cost of a fab will equal the GDP of some medium-sized countries. And all of this is occurring at a time when Moores Law is pushing the limits of conventional semiconductor manufacturings lithography technology. Feature sizes are half the dimension of the wavelength that is being used to define the patterns.

To meet these challenges, there are now a growing number of alternatives to conventional lithography that are being developed for making silicon microelectronics. All of them have considerable promise, but they will be expensive to develop and fully commercialize. At the same time, new materials/technology platforms - such as spintronics, plastic electronics, molectronics and nanotube/nanowire electronics are emerging that promise to improve on conventional silicon technology in terms of performance, power consumption and other important metrics. But these raise challenges of their own.

Some observers believe that many current equipment firms will not be able to cope with these issues and will quit the market. As a result, they say, the equipment market will become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few firms. However, at the same time, there have never been so many opportunities for new entrants to stake out an emerging segment of the semiconductor equipment market. This report identifies and quantifies the opportunities in this exciting area, identifies the main players, and analyzes the strategies that will lead equipment companies to success.

Executive Summary 1

E.1 Emerging Challenges for Semiconductor Manufacturing 1
E.2 New Production Technologies¯Advantages, Disadvantages and Timetables 2
E.3 New Materials/Technology Platforms for Chips An Alternative to Silicon 4
E.4 Firms to Watch 5
E.5 Summary of Forecasts 8
E.6 Summary of Conclusions 9

Chapter One Introduction 12

1.1 Background to Report 12
1.2 Objective of this Report 12
1.3 Scope of this Report 13
1.4 Methodology of this Report 14
1.5 Information for this Report 14
1.6 Plan of this Report 15

Chapter Two Sources of Manufacturing Challenge and Opportunity 16

2.1 Moores Law and the Prob lems of Scaling 16
2.2 What, Us Worry? 17
2.3 Timescales? 17
2.4 Architectural Issues 21: 2.4.1 Impact of Multicore Processors 22; 2.4.2 Impact of 3-D Architectures 22
2.5 Fab Costs 23

Chapter Three The New "Nano" Production Techniques 25

3.1 Introduction 25
3.2 Technology and Market Assessment of Alternative Lithography Systems 28: 3.2.1 Immersion Lithography 28; 3.2.2 EUV Lithography 30; 3.2.3 Electron Projection Lithography (EPL) 32; 3.2.4 Nanoimprint Lithography 33
3.3 Direct-write 38: 3.3.1 Dip-Pen Nanolithography 38; 3.3.2 E-Beam 41
3.4 Deposition and Self-Assembly 46: 3.4.1 Atomic Layer Deposition 47; 3.4.2 Self-Assembly 47
3.5 Other Approaches 50

Chapter Four New Materials and their Demands on Production 52

4.1 Introduction 52
4.2 Alternatives to Silicon 54
4.3 High and Low-k Materials 55
4.4 Carbon Nanotubes and Nanowires 58
4.5 Spintronics 62
4.6 Molectronics 65
4.7 Plastic/Organic Electronics 68
4.8 Quantum Dots 70

Chapter Five Eight-Year Forecasts of Next Generation Production Equipment 72

5.1 Forecasting Methodology 72
5.2 Potential Sources of Error 72
5.3 Pricing of Equipment 73
5.4 Forecasts 74

Acronyms and Abbreviations Used in this Report 77

About the Author 78

List of Exhibits

Exhibit E-1 Important Novel Approaches to Semiconductor Manufacturing 3
Exhibit E-2 New Materials Platforms and their Production Requirements 4
Exhibit E-3 Summary of Market Forecasts for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Operating at the Nanoscale (excludes conventional photolithography) 9
Exhibit 2-1 Different Perspectives on Scaling 20
Exhibit 3-1 Selected NIL Players and Technologies 36
Exhibit 3-2 Recent End Users of Molecular Imp rints Nanoimprint Lithography Equipment 37
Exhibit 3-3 Potential Applications for Ink-Jet Printable Electronics 45
Exhibit 4-1 The Interrelationship Between Materials, Architecture and Production Modes 53
Exhibit 4-2 Evolution of Nanotube Electronics 59
Exhibit 4-3 Evolution of Molectronics 67
Exhibit 5-1 Market Forecasts for Alternative Lithography Technologies 75
Exhibit 5-2 Market Forecasts for Direct Write Technologies 76