Gearing Up For High-Numerical Aperture Extreme UltraViolet

Semiconductor Engineering ^ | OCTOBER 21ST, 2021 | MARK LAPEDUS

[FarCenter]

The semiconductor industry is moving full speed ahead to develop high-NA EUV, but bringing up this next generation lithography system and the associated infrastructure remains a monumental and expensive task.

ASML has been developing its high-numerical aperture (high-NA) EUV lithography line for some time. Basically, high-NA EUV scanners are the follow-on to today’s EUV lithography systems based on a 0.33 NA lens. Still in R&D, ASML’s new high-NA EUV system involves a completely new tool, featuring a 0.55 NA lens capable of 8nm resolutions, compared to 13nm for the existing tool. The 0.55 NA EUV tool is targeted for 3nm in 2023, but it’s unlikely to move into production until 2025, analysts said.

A high-NA scanner is expected to cost $318.6 million, compared to $153.4 million for today’s EUV systems, according to KeyBanc. The total cost is even higher. Other new equipment, new photomasks, and different photoresists are required to enable high-NA EUV. Various vendors are working on these technologies, but at this point some gaps remain.

Lithography equipment is used to pattern tiny features on chips, enabling chipmakers to develop smaller and faster devices at advanced nodes, and to pack more features into a single die or package. Until 2018, chipmakers patterned the features on leading-edge chips using traditional optical lithography scanners. But at advanced nodes, the patterning process with optical lithography became too complex, prompting the need for EUV. Now even that’s not sufficient.

Utilizing a 13.5nm wavelength, ASML’s 0.33 NA EUV scanners are being used by Samsung and TSMC to produce 7nm and 5nm chips. Intel is also inserting ASML’s EUV scanners for advanced chip production. Samsung and SK Hynix are using EUV for DRAM production.

Chipmakers will use today’s EUV for a long time. But at some point — somewhere beyond the 3nm node — it will become difficult to pattern future chips using existing EUV. This is where high-NA fits in. Intel, for one, believes the technology is critical and announced plans to install ASML’s first 0.55 high-NA EUV scanner.

[FarCenter]

Good overview from last Fall of EUV semiconductor technology and all the new innovations to make it work.

Later articles give a price of $340 million per tool, and each fab needs several.

But the EUV tool is only one part of the production system to go from blank wafer to a finished wafer ready to be cut into chips.

[Red Badger]

TechnoPing!...................

[bigbob]

ASML is a Dutch company that is tightly coupled to TSMC.

I’m old enough to remember one of the companies that created it: ASM America. Note the name...

[ShadowAce]

[CtBigPat]

At what point do they go to X ray?

[Ken H]

A bit of the old UltraViolet

[FarCenter]

How An EUV Light Source Works from Cymer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yTARacBxHI

[P.O.E.]

Ultraviolet? It’s a Catastrophe!

[FarCenter]

Tin and Laser Produced Plasma (LPP)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPviCEYtarY

The 13.5 nm wavelength is just longer than the 10 nm longest wavelength of the X-Ray spectrum. It really verges on “soft X-Rays”.

[TChad]

High-Numerical Aperture Extreme UltraViolet

Is that like Jade Blue Afterglow?

[GingisK]

I’d be super pleased if they’d just deliver the “old ones”.

[FarCenter]

IC supply should ease shortly. Besides the Covid caused demand for laptops and Chromebooks, etc. there was capacity going into GPUs and ASICs for use in crypto mining. Much of this demand has eased as Covid has run its course and some jurisdictions have outlawed crypto mining.

What To Do About The GPU Shortage? Suggested Solutions

https://www.wepc.com/tips/gpu-shortage-solutions/

Ths shortage in automotive chips was due to the auto makers shooting themselves in the foot. With Covid, they canceled orders, and they lost their place in the queue for new supply.

[NorthMountain]

X-Ray starts at 10 nm ... they’re doing 13.5 nm right now. X-ray isn’t far off.

[GingisK]

Some of the ones I use on my boards are out one full year and another at two years. I use ATSAM4Sxxx and others from that family. Most of the AVRs, like the ATXMEGA128A3 and the ATMEGA328PB are unavailable for two years.

I also use STM32L476 ARMs, and arrival dates for those aren't published.

I was just getting ready to purchase some ATSAM4S ARMs when, poof, they were bought up by an unseen manufacturer. Those went from 6,000 available to available in two years.

For my embedded world of instrumentation and control, the IC shortage has another two years to heal.

[FarCenter]

Multibillion dollar investments in sub-10 nm fabs aren’t going to help. The Microchip fab in Colorado Springs is shown as a 1000 to 250 nm fab.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

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Microchip Technology cutting jobs in Colorado

Electronics Production | January 10, 2020

Arizona-based semiconductor manufacturer Microchip Technology has announced it is cutting 200 to 275 jobs in early 2020 at its Colorado Springs plant.

https://evertiq.com/news/47524

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Microchip Technology expands Colorado Springs facility, hiring 50+ specialists
Posted: Jan 19, 2022 / 09:20 AM MST

COLORADO SPRINGS — Microchip Technology Inc., a leading provider of microcontroller and analog semiconductors, announced on Wednesday it’s expanding its Colorado Springs fabrication facility.

Microchip will invest $40 million to re-tool the factory for advanced technology nodes and equipment. The company will be adding 50-75 specialists roles during the first phase of hiring, with plans to add many additional jobs over the upcoming years.

https://www.fox21news.com/top-stories/microchip-technology-expands-colorado-springs-facility-hiring-50-specialists/

[GingisK]

Microchip also has plans to build one or two fabs in Georgia.