Applied Materials, Inc. and Ushio, Inc. announced a strategic partnership to accelerate the industry?s roadmap for heterogeneous integration (HI) of chiplets into 3D packages. The companies are jointly bringing to market the first digital lithography system specifically designed for patterning the advanced substrates needed in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) era of computing. Rapidly growing AI workloads are driving the need for larger chips with greater functionality.

As the performance requirements of AI outpaces traditional Moore?s Law scaling, chipmakers are increasingly adopting HI techniques that combine multiple chiplets in an advanced package to deliver similar or higher performance and bandwidth as a monolithic chip. The industry needs larger package substrates based on new materials such as glass that enable extremely fine-pitch interconnects and superior electrical and mechanical properties. The strategic partnership between Applied and Ushio brings together two industry leaders to accelerate this transition.

The new DLT system is the only lithography technology that can achieve the resolution necessary for advanced substrate applications while delivering throughput levels required for high-volume production. With the ability to pattern less than 2-micron line widths, the system enables the highest area density for chiplet architectures on any substrate, including wafers or large panels made of glass or organic materials. The DLT system is uniquely designed to solve unpredictable substrate warpage issues and achieve overlay accuracy.

Production systems have already been shipped to multiple customers, and 2-micron patterning has been demonstrated on glass and other advanced package substrates. Applied pioneered the technology behind the DLT system and will be responsible for R&D and definition of a scalable roadmap together with Ushio to enable continued innovation in advanced packaging to 1-micron line widths and beyond. Ushio will leverage its mature manufacturing and customer-facing infrastructure to accelerate adoption of DLT.

Together, the partnership offers customers the broadest portfolio of lithography solutions for advanced packaging applications.