South Korean researchers have developed a new semiconductor patterning technology that uses a camera flash instead of standard photolithography.

The research team at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) said on Tuesday they found a new method to create a 7 nanometer conductive pattern on a substrate by exposing it to a short burst of a camera flashlight, which takes about one-thousandth of a second.

The process used to transfer a pattern to a layer on the microchip is called lithography, but standard photolithography is limited in microfabrication with less than 10 nanometers in size.

Micropatterning is required to make high-capacity and high-performance semiconductor devices.

The new technology is expected to be applied to develop microchips dedicated to artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT), according to the research team.

By Kim Yoon-jin

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