Advances in semiconductor performance and circuit miniaturization

Hoya’s contribution to progress in the semiconductor industry

Clean room in Nagasaka plant

Semiconductors are vital to the operation of products large and small that we rely on for our daily activities. These chips control everything from PCs, mobile phones and digital cameras to home appliances and automobiles.

Moore’s Law symbolizes the remarkable speed of advances in semiconductor performance. The law states that transistor density on semiconductor chips will double approximately every 18 months.

Semiconductor devices are made by using ultraviolet light to project circuit patterns on the surface of silicon wafers. Hoya used its decades of expertise in optical technology to start a lithography business in the 1970s for semiconductor manufacturing equipment. By fabricating the mask blanks used to make semiconductor photomasks, Hoya has played an important role in the rapid advances in semiconductor devices expressed by Moore’s Law.

Miniaturization is now measured in molecules and even atoms

Advances in scaling down design rules (the width of circuit lines) have been critical to making semiconductor devices with greater circuit density.

In the past, line width was measured in microns, which is short for micrometer (one thousandth of a millimeter). Today, semiconductor makers use nanometers (one millionth of a millimeter) instead. The switch to nanometers, which are used to express the size of molecules and atoms, demonstrates the exacting demands now placed on semiconductor miniaturization.