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Vistec Lithography

Product News Wednesday, November 15, 2006: Grant Instruments (Cambridge) Ltd

CAMBRIDGE, England, October 31, 2006 - Vistec Lithography, a developerof electron beam lithography systems for the worldwide semiconductorindustry, has selected Grant Technologies, adesigner and manufacturer of custom scientific and industrialsolutions, to develop a bespoke refrigeration system to cool the lens,chamber and handling system within its VB300 electron beamnano-lithography machine.

Engineers at Vistec Lithography's development facility in Cambridge,England, needed a high-precision refrigeration system for its newVB300 product to provide ultra stable (to ±0.01°C) temperature controlwithin a range of 12 to 22°C, flow rate 1 to 2 litres per minute, maxpressure 2 to 3 bar and a cooling capacity of 250W. The equipmentalso needed to connect to a host computer over a DeviceNet to provideoperators with real-time temperature monitoring and alarm outputs.

Peter Goodall, manufacturing and quality production engineer at VistecLithography, said: "Grant's custom solution has exceeded ourexpectations. Their engineering team listened to our requirements anddeveloped a well-engineered, extremely reliable temperature controlsystem which is highly serviceable and extremely cost-effective.Maintaining a stable water temperature is critical to controlling theaccuracy of the electro-magnetic lens within the state-of-the-artVB300 system therefore we needed a supplier with a proven track recordand substantial thermodynamics expertise."

Vistec Lithography's VB300 electron beam system is designed for use inadvanced production and R&D applications to create the ultra-fineimages used in the semiconductor and nanotechnology industries. Thesystem has the ability to load and fully expose substrates up to 300mmin diameter and mask plates up to 7 inches square with a lithographiccapability to the sub-10nm level. These applications are undertaken bycustomers for the development of the next generations of nano-devicesand structures, at major semiconductor manufacturers, industrial R&Dfacilities, as well as at universities and other technology centres ofexcellence.

"We were very impressed by Grant's solution and in particular theirflexibility and speed of responsiveness," added Amin Javer, seniorsystem design engineer at Vistec Lithography. "For example, we decidedafter the first system was delivered to add inline thermal detectioncapability. We discussed this with Grant's engineers and within amatter of weeks they proposed and implemented an innovative solutionwhich fully met our brief - it was an incredibly quick turnaround."

Grant Technologies designs and manufactures custom scientific and industrial solutions to meet its customers' application-specific requirements. Leveraging its 50-year heritage in heating and cooling, mixing and shaking, data logging and data acquisition, and extensive manufacturing expertise, the company has delivered successful solutions to hundreds of companies across a diverse range of industry sectors. These include, among others, life sciences, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, automotive, industrial, oil and petrochemicals, scientific, military and environmental testing.

Paul Pergande, head of Grant Technologies, said: "We pride ourselves on providing our customers with fast-turnaround custom-built solutions using our considerable expertise in thermodynamics, data acquisition and equipment design. We are delighted to see that our temperature control system has now been integrated by Vistec into their market-leading VB300 lithography machine which is being used at the very forefront of semiconductor research."