Hiroshi Ito, resist co-inventor, dies after long illness
Hiroshi Ito, co-inventor of the chemically amplified resist (along with C. Grant Willson and Jean Fréchet), passed away after a long illness in late June. Dr. Ito was working as a post-doc under Grant Willson at IBM when they developed the concept and the first example of a chemically amplified photoresist in 1980, now the dominant technology for semiconductor manufacturing. Dr. Ito became an IBM fellow in 2008. He received many awards for his work, including the Heroes of Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society.
Ito was author or coauthor of more than 40 papers at the SPIE Advanced Lithography (and earlier Microlithography) symposium since the 1980s.
Private funeral services are pending and the family requests that donations in Dr. Ito's honor be made to the San Jose Opera.
