ORA Lands NIST Award for Lithography Modeling

Optical Research Associates of Pasadena, Calif., has won a $1.7 million Advanced Technology Program award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the development of lithography modeling algorithms. The allotment will fund ORA's "Fundamental Algorithms for Direct Metric Tolerancing and Illumination Optimization" project, which will focus on improving the software used by industry to design and build semiconductor devices. The company views the award as an opportunity to develop modeling techniques that will bridge the gap between semiconductor manufacturing theory and technology, according to Robert Hilbert, president and CEO of ORA.