Making ‘Magic Film’ for DNA-Sized Silicon Features

​Anna Lio contends that you don’t just fire up a 200-ton, school bus-sized extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine and sit back and watch it print out chips. That would be like showing up for a mountain climb without a plan. Rather, it takes a team of scientists and engineers to operate this amazing machine, not to mention create the chipmaking recipes it uses. Lio develops the ingredients (specialized chemicals called “photoresist”) used to imprint ever-more sophisticated and intricate integrated circuits onto silicon wafers — a critical step in maintaining Moore’s Law.