SAN DIEGO, Jan. 11 -- JMAR Technologies Inc. has awarded an initial phase contract to SAL Inc. of South Burlington, Vt., worth more than $1 million for an XRS 2000 NanoPulsar x-ray lithography system powered by a JMAR PXS-125 laser plasma x-ray source.
The complete NanoPulsar system will include an optical collimator developed by X-Ray Optical Systems Inc. of Albany, N.Y., under contract from JMAR Research Inc., JMAR's R&D division. The collimator directs the x-rays produced by the PXS-125 onto the semiconductor mask/wafer target. This is the first x-ray point source system with a collimator intended for semiconductor manufacturing. JMAR issued the contract under a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) funded program administered by the Army Research Laboratory to demonstrate laser plasma x-ray point source technology for advanced commercial lithography applications.