A mask shop is a factory which manufactures photomasks for use in the semiconductor industry. There are two distinct types found in the trade. Captive mask shops are in-house operations owned by the biggest semiconductor corporations, while merchant mask shops make masks for most of the industry.
Merchant mask shops will produce photomasks for a variety of integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), foundries or optical device companies in addition to providing excess cavity work and re-pellicle for captive mask shops.
The company structure is similar to that of any medium-sized manufacture and has the following unique departments or mask makers:
- Sales Customer / customer services
- Front end data prep
- Facilities maintenance - plant & environment
- Engineering - equipment maintenance
- Engineering - process, inspection & metrology
- Quality assurance
- Shipping & dispatching
Photomask market
The worldwide photomask production market was $3.1 billion in 2013. Almost half of market attributed to captive mask shops (in-house mask shops of major chipmakers).
Infrastructure (technical and financial)
The costs of creating new mask shop for 180 nm processes were estimated in 2005 as $40 million, and for 130 nm - more than $100 million. In 2013 cost of new 28 nm mask shop was estimated at $110 – 140 million.
Future
As technology shrinks, the cost to mask shops increase and the product turn around time grow longer as well.
See also
- Computational lithography
- GDSII
References
Further reading
- Rizvi, Syed (2005). Handbook of Photomask Manufacturing Technology. CRC Press. p. 728. ISBN 9781420028782.
External links
- Mask industry assessment: 2009 // Proc. SPIE 7488, Photomask Technology 2009, 748803 (September 29, 2009); doi:10.1117/12.832722
- 2013 mask industry survey // Proc. SPIE 8880, Photomask Technology 2013, 88800K (September 20, 2013); doi:10.1117/12.2033255
- SEMATECH’s Photomask Industry Survey Validates Top Industry Challenges and Identifies Long-Term Opportunities // ALBANY N.Y. (September 24, 2013)
