Carl Zeiss Wins IARPA Contract to Develop Advanced Nano Manufacturing and Imaging Applications

Carl Zeiss today announced that it has been awarded a $22.6 million contract to develop certain nano manufacturing and imaging applications based on its revolutionary ORION™ Gas Field Ion Source (GFIS) technology.

The contract was awarded to US-based Carl Zeiss NTS, LLC by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) under the Circuit Analysis Tool (CAT) program.

The CAT program is geared towards addressing challenges in nano manufacturing and imaging pertaining to circuit analysis for which existing techniques have no clear evolutionary path to the 22nm node and beyond. The nano manufacturing thrust of the CAT program is focused on the modification of the electrical behavior of an integrated circuit through the use of precise deposition and removal techniques that can cut and/or create new connections.

“IARPA has clearly identified key challenges where the development of critical analytical instrumentation has not kept pace with the rapid progress in the design and processing of nanostructures,” said Dan McGee, president of Carl Zeiss NTS LLC. “Carl Zeiss’ position as a leader and innovator in charged particle beam technologies is affirmed by this contract award and we look forward to solving these challenges for IARPA and the global nano manufacturing industry at large.”

The GFIS technology from Carl Zeiss offers significant benefits over the existing state-of-the-art in meeting advanced nano manufacturing requirements. A high brightness, sub-nm probe of inert ion species offers the ability to perform accurate, precise, and controlled edits on extremely small features (sub 10 nm) in high density components. A low lateral beam spread will result in tighter, better defined deposit geometries. In addition, Carl Zeiss’ unique GFIS technology enables superior nano-patterning fidelity without residual metallic contamination relative to conventional Ga-FIB based technologies.

This contract is sponsored and managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

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