Quantify Mask Lifetime Extension from Eliminating Contact

# Quantify Mask-Lifetime Extension From Eliminating Contact

A contact-printing mask wore out through repeated physical contact, accumulating scratches and embedded particles until it could no longer produce defect-free exposures.

Because Micralign never touched the mask to the wafer, that specific wear mechanism simply did not apply, and a Micralign mask could be used across far more exposure cycles before replacement.

Extending mask lifetime this way lowered the recurring cost of running a production line, since a mask that no longer needed frequent replacement spread its own creation cost over many more good wafers.

Diagram above: mask lifetime, contact vs projection.

Diagram above: why this mattered economically.