A mask shop is a factory which manufactures
photomask
A photomask is an opaque plate with holes or transparencies that allow light to shine through in a defined pattern. They are commonly used in photolithography and the production of integrated circuits (ICs or "chips") in particular. Masks are used ...
s for use in the
semiconductor industry. There are two distinct types found in the trade. Captive mask shops are in-house operations owned by the biggest semiconductor corporations, while merchant mask shops make masks for most of the industry.
Merchant mask shops will produce photomasks for a variety of
integrated device manufacturer
An integrated device manufacturer (IDM) is a semiconductor company which designs, manufactures, and sells integrated circuit (IC) products.
IDM is often used to refer to a company which handles semiconductor manufacturing in-house, compared to ...
s (IDMs), foundries or optical device companies in addition to providing excess cavity work and re-
pellicle for captive mask shops.
The company structure is similar to that of any medium-sized manufacture and has the
following unique departments or mask makers:
*Sales Customer / customer services
*Front end data prep
*Facilities maintenance - plant & environment
*Engineering - equipment maintenance
*Engineering - process, inspection & metrology
*Quality assurance
*Shipping & dispatching
Photomask market
The worldwide photomask production market was $3.1 billion in 2013. Almost half of market attributed to captive mask shops (in-house mask shops of major chipmakers).
Infrastructure (technical and financial)
The costs of creating new mask shop for 180 nm processes were estimated in 2005 as $40 million, and for 130 nm - more than $100 million. In 2013 cost of new 28 nm mask shop was estimated at $110 – 140 million.
Future
As technology shrinks, the cost to mask shops increase and the product turn around time grow longer as well. The trend in this new decade is for manufacturing to migrate eastwards to reduce cost and lead times. Once technology restrictions in the
Wassenaar Arrangement
The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies is a multilateral export control regime (MECR) with 42 participating states including many former Comecon (Warsaw Pact) countries established ...
are reduced, high end
reticle
A reticle, or reticule also known as a graticule, is a pattern of fine lines or markings built into the eyepiece of an optical device such as a telescopic sight, spotting scope, theodolite, optical microscope or the screen of an oscilloscop ...
s and
integrated circuits will be produced in
mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
rather than
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
.
See also
*
Computational lithography
Computational lithography (also known as computational scaling) is the set of mathematical and algorithmic approaches designed to improve the resolution attainable through photolithography. Computational lithography has come to the forefront of ...
*
GDSII
GDSII stream format (GDSII), is a binary database file format which is the de facto industry standard for Electronic Design Automation data exchange of integrated circuit or IC layout artwork. It is a binary file format representing planar geom ...
References
Further reading
*
External links
Mask industry assessment: 2009// Proc. SPIE 7488, Photomask Technology 2009, 748803 (September 29, 2009);
doi:10.1117/12.8327222013 mask industry survey// Proc. SPIE 8880, Photomask Technology 2013, 88800K (September 20, 2013);
doi:10.1117/12.2033255
SEMATECH’s Photomask Industry Survey Validates Top Industry Challenges and Identifies Long-Term Opportunities// ALBANY N.Y. (September 24, 2013)
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Lithography (microfabrication)