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An unparalleled success story – Our 150th MLA 150 Maskless Aligner installed

MLA 150 – a maskless lithography tool for nanofabrication of quantum devices, MEMS, micro-optics and other applications

Heidelberg, Germany – We are happy to announce that one hundred and fifty MLA 150 Maskless Aligners have been successfully installed worldwide at our customers facilities. First launched to the market in 2015, the revolutionary maskless technology of the MLA 150 has become firmly established within the advanced microfabrication community.

The MLA 150 was the first and only tool that has become a true alternative to mask-based aligners, offering extremely high exposure speed, high frontside and backside alignment accuracies, warpage compensation, high resolution and high accuracy, and the ability to expose on any substrate size from pieces that are a few square millimeters up to full 8” wafers. Further adding to the flexibility, the non-contact exposure technique for the MLA150 in addition to the simple ease of use makes this the ideal tool in rapid prototyping environments, for low to mid-volume production, and for research and development. Common application areas include MEMS, electronics, micro-optics, micro-fluidics, sensors, and many more.

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) – Pioneer in maskless technology
The beta-version of the MLA 150 was installed in August 2014 at the Center of MicroNanoTechnology (CMi) of the renowned École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) located in Switzerland, being one of Europe’s most vibrant and cosmopolitan science and technology centres. The CMi is a complex of clean rooms and processing equipment devoted to microtechnology made accessible to trained academic and industrial users. The CMi is at the same time one of the pioneers in maskless lithography.

In 2022, the CMi purchased their second MLA 150 Maskless Aligner, which was installed most recently. “The MLA 150 is today one of the most important equipment in our facility, and there are many users that daily use the machine for printing. So, we wanted to have two of them”, emphasizes Julien Dorsaz, the manager of the photolithography division of the CMi. To get insights into the work at the CMi, and to learn about the MLA 150 experience of the users, we conducted a 30-minute interview with Julien Dorsaz. Get the full interview down below or directly on our YouTube channel.

Today, the MLA 150 serves as a trusted, indispensable workhorse in many multi-user facilities, microfabrication labs, and research institutes. Since its market introduction, the MLA 150 has developed into one of our most important technologies in our company’s product portfolio. Setting the bar for state-of-the-art maskless lithography, the MLA 150 promises continuous market growth in the coming years.

Contact for further questions:

Sonja Pfeuffer
Head of Global Marketing
sonja.pfeuffer@heidelberg-instruments.com

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