MLA150 Maskless Aligner
The Modern Standard in Lithography
The modern, maskless aligner replaces legacy technology with a fast, flexible, and remarkably easy-to-use solution engineered for the highest degree of performance. By using a digital mirror device (DMD) as a dynamic mask, the MLA 150 overcomes the drawbacks of physical photomasks. Go from a digital design to a perfectly patterned substrate in minutes, empowering your users to accelerate research in fields like quantum devices, MEMS, micro-optics, and life sciences.
Engineered for the Multi-User Facility
Reduce your training overhead and maximize tool uptime. The MLA 150 is so intuitive that new users can be fully qualified to work independently in less than one hour. Its user-friendly software and streamlined workflow are perfectly suited for a shared lab environment, which is why the MLA 150 has become an essential tool in leading cleanrooms worldwide.
Unmatched Flexibility for Advanced Research and More
Your work isn’t standard — and your lithography tool shouldn’t be either. Whether you’re advancing cutting-edge research, accelerating innovation through rapid prototyping, or producing high-quality small series, the MLA 150 adapts to your needs, not the other way around.
Handle a Broad Range of Resists: Install one or two different laser wavelengths (375 nm and/or 405 nm) simultaneously to expose the entire range of broadband, g-, h-, and i-line photoresists without hardware changes.
Work with Challenging Substrates: Specialized vacuum chucks allow you to easily handle difficult samples, including small substrate pieces down to 3×3 mm², thin foils, and warped wafers.
Create 2.5D and High-Aspect-Ratio Structures: Use the integrated Grayscale Exposure Mode to fabricate complex 2.5D microstructures, or the High-Aspect-Ratio Mode to pattern thick resists with steep sidewalls, ideal for MEMS and microfluidics.
Interactive ‘Draw Mode’: Directly draw and expose patterns onto the live camera image of your sample—perfect for quick prototyping or precisely placing electrodes onto unique features like graphene flakes or nanowires.
High Speed, High Precision, No Compromises
User-friendly doesn’t mean lower performance. The MLA 150 delivers the speed and accuracy you need to push the boundaries of fabrication.
Sub-Micron Resolution: Achieve a minimum feature size down to 0.45 μm to create complex, high-resolution devices.
Outstanding Throughput: Expose a full 150 mm wafer in less than 16 minutes.
Advanced Automated Alignment: The system achieves 250 nm alignment accuracy and digitally compensates for offset, rotation, scaling, and shearing—adjustments impossible with physical masks.
Drastically Reduce Your Operating Costs
Eliminate the largest and most persistent expense in lithography: the photomask. With the MLA 150, there are no mask procurement costs and no associated multi-week lead times. You also eliminate cleaning and storage efforts and remove the risk of costly breakage. Combined with a laser lifetime of 10-20 years and easy maintenance, the MLA 150 offers an exceptionally low total cost of ownership.
Key Applications
From fundamental physics to applied biosciences, the MLA 150 is the trusted tool for:
Perfect Focus: A dynamic autofocus system ensures sharp, uniform features, effectively handling patterned, warped, or delicate substrates.
Ultimate Stability: An integrated environmental chamber with temperature-controlled laminar airflow (±0.1°C) minimizes thermal expansion effects, ensuring stable and repeatable results.
Nanofabrication: Quantum devices, 2D materials, semiconductor nanowires
MEMS & MOEMS: Sensors, actuators, micro-optical elements, microfluidics
Materials Science: Patterning of novel materials
Life Sciences: Lab-on-a-chip devices, biosensors
>250
Installed Systems
Customer applications
A wafer of superconducting detectors for the South Pole Telescope (SPT) camera. The camera carries an array of over 16000 such devices. Each of them comprises ultra-thin superconducting elements with features as small as 1 μm. Here, the MLA 150 was used to fabricate the Nb leads, which appear as bands in between the pixels. (Courtesy of CNM at Argonne National Laboratory, photo by Clarence Chang)
A gear wheel patterned in 800 µm thick SU-8 demonstrates the capability of the MLA 150 to create vertical sidewalls in thick forks, gear wheels, piezoelectric material, bio-, chemical or pressure sensors, or other miniaturized physical devices.
A master for a microfluidic mixer to be transferred by soft lithography in PDMS. The structure is patterned in 100 μm SU-8 with the 375 nm laser wavelength of the MLA 150. This type of structure requires high-throughput for fast large-area patterning and precise stitching to ensure channel smoothness.
Why customers choose our systems
"The MLA 150 is a very good compromise between flexibility, throughput, and performance. In our multiuser facilities, it is highly appreciated for fast prototyping on substrates of various dimensions and shapes. Because the acquisition of the MLA 150 has been a game changer in our lithography department we decided to get a second one."
Dr. Philippe Flückiger, Director of Operations
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne(EPFL)Center of MicroNanoTechnology(CMi),Lausanne,Switzerland
Technical Data
Writing performance | Write Mode I * | Write Mode II * |
|---|---|---|
Minimum feature size [μm] | 0.6 (0.45 optional) | 1 |
Minimum Lines and Spaces [μm] | 0.8 (0.45 optional) | 1.2 |
Global 2nd layer alignment [nm] | 500 | 500 |
Local 2nd layer alignment [nm] | 250 | 250 |
Backside alignment [nm] | 1000 | 1000 |
Exposure time 405 nm laser for 4″ wafer [min] | 35 | 9 |
Exposure time 375 nm laser for 4″ wafer [min] | 35 | 20 |
Max. write speed 405 nm laser [mm²/min] | 285 | 1100 |
375 nm laser [mm²/min] | 285 | 500 |
System dimensions (lithography unit) | -- |
|---|---|
Weight | 1100 kg |
Height × width × depth | 1950 mm × 1300 mm × 1300 mm |
Installation requirements | -- |
|---|---|
Compressed air | 6 - 10 bar |
Electrical | 230 VAC ± 5%, 50/60 Hz, 16 A |
Economical considerations |
|---|
Solid state laser light sources with lifetime of several years |
Low running costs for maintenance, energy consumption, spare parts |
Saves on the cost of photomasks |
* Only one write mode can be installed on the system
