It’s that time of year again, when a large proportion of the world’s lithographers make the annual trek to San Jose to attend their biggest conference of the year. Attendance is expected to surpass 4,000 – and that’s a lot of litho engineers. I hope the area bars are well stocked with beer.

2007 promises to be a very interesting year for lithographers. Two EUV “alpha demo” tools (whatever that means) were installed last December, so I suspect we’ll learn a great deal, good or bad, about how much work is required to make EUV practical. We’ll probably also see the next hyper-NA installment in 2007 – tools with numerical apertures in the range of 1.3 to 1.35. Is this the highest we can go? And if so, is this finally the end for optical lithography? But wait, what about double patterning? I think 2007 will be the inevitable let-down year for double patterning, a depression of reality after all the hype and expectations from last year. Then, following the normal cycle of emotions, in 2008 we’ll either figure out how to make double patterning work, or give up on it. The future of advanced lithography is cloudier than I ever remember seeing it before.

And so people come to this conference looking for answers. But people come to Advanced Lithography for many reasons. TI researchers will come looking for jobs. Freescale lithographers will be looking for recommendations on where to live in New York. Intel will come to listen, but they won’t talk. And of course, the suppliers (oh, there are soooo many suppliers) will come looking for business. What am I looking for this week? As always, two things. First, community. I’ve come here to reconnect with the people I see each year at this event, many of whom I am proud to consider my friends. And second, inspiration. The collective creativity of the men and women presenting papers at the conference is absolutely astounding. Each year I come away with far more ideas of things to do than I can possible attempt in one year.

And that’s what this conference is all about – a community of scientists and engineers taking inspiration from each other. As each of us runs as fast as we possibly can towards the brick wall at the end of Moore’s Law, its good to know we’re not alone.