Toshiba in Partnership Pact to Speed Development of NIL Technologies for Next-Gen Memory Devices

Toshiba signed a partnership agreement with South Korean chip maker SK Hynix to speed joint development of nano imprint lithography (NIL) as “one of the candidate technologies for advancing the migration to future generations of memory devices,” Toshiba said Thursday. Engineers from the two companies will start development of basic technologies for the NIL process at Toshiba’s Yokohama, Japan, plant in April, it said. “Practical use” of the NIL technologies is targeted for 2017, it said. Photolithography, the current “mainstream process technology,” uses a laser and photosensitive mask to etch circuits on a light-sensitive coating onto semiconductor wafers, Toshiba said. NIL transfers the circuit design directly, by impressing a patterned template onto the wafer, it said: “This has the potential to achieve finer designs.”