Immersion and 32nm lithography: now and future

The amazing growth of the semiconductor industry over the past decades has been supported, and in many cases driven, by miniaturization of devices. Behind this has been one strong backbone - lithography. In the 1970's, devices had geometries of several micrometers, but now we are about to enter 45nm device pre-production and shortly after move it into volume-production. Immersion lithography, although having a short development time, is already in production and will become the primary technology driver. What we need to do now is identify the solutions for 32nm lithography. There are several candidates for 32nm lithography, such as EUVL, High Index Immersion and Double Patterning / Double Exposure. Other more esoteric technologies such as nanoimprint and maskless lithography have also been mentioned. In this paper, the present status of Immersion lithography will be reviewed and each of the 32nm candidates are reviewed.