In 1993, it became an independent subsidiary that develops, sells, and maintains service for the computer-aided design, manufacturing, and engineering systems used by Toyota and its suppliers. With the introduction of the 3-D solid and surface modeling software at supplier Nissin to Toyota Caelum's product line, Caelum was able to branch out to offer design services to nonautomotive companies in Japan. Led by Grant Willson, a professor of chemical engineering and chemistry at Texas, the engineering research team developed a different process for patterning semiconductor devices than is now widely used. The new method uses simple molds and operates in the more usual conditions of low pressure and room temperature. The success of the semiconductor manufacturing industry is largely the result of learning how to make circuits smaller, Willson said.
Smaller devices are quicker and cheaper to produce than their larger counterparts.
The step in the chip making process that controls the device size is microlithography. Willson led research groups at IBM and later at Texas that were responsible for several major breakthroughs in lithography during the last 20 years. The traditional printing process involves projecting the circuit design from a master mask onto a wafer coated with a photosensitive material called a photoresist. The ability to print ever-smaller structures in the photoresist requires increasingly sophisticated cameras called projection printers. The most advanced projection printers use sophisticated lasers as a light source and they have lenses with as many as 30 individual elements.