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July 14, 2011 - Wednesday at SEMICON West 2011 was a lithography-rich day, with the Sokudo Lithography Breakfast and some interesting keynote speech comments.
| SEMICON West 2011 |
| Day 1: SOI vs. FinFET, ReRAM vs. 3D NAND, and lots of video data |
| Day 2: A lithography-rich day |
| Day 3: Advancement in LED, exec perspectives, solar observations |
The two remaining advanced optical lithography suppliers, Nikon and ASML, both offered roadmap presentations that outlined their expectations for the last generations of 193 and the advent of EUV technology into production. Nikon noted that its upcoming 621D optical system will have a remarkable 2nm/3σ overlay spec. These advanced systems will feature scanning tuning exposure control to be able to extend immersion 193nm performance. On the EUV side, their EUV-1 development tool will have an NA of 0.25, with the production-oriented EUV-HVM boosting this to NA=0.4.
For its part, ASML laid out an EUV roadmap going from the developmental NXE3100, also with a 0.25 NA, to the 3300B, which will have specified throughput of 125 wafers/hour, assuming the availability of a source that can deliver 15mJ of energy to the wafer surface. ASML currently has three EUV tools at customer sites running wafers, with a fourth being installed, and plans in place to ship 10 units in 2012. Interestingly, the company has not yet made a final decision on its source supplier.
Another angle on post-optical lithography came from Mapper Lithography, which is developing a multi-beam e-beam direct-write system. Using excellent presentation graphics, Bert Jan Kampherbeek explained that Mapper's initial machine, the 1.1, will have throughput of 1WPH at 25nm, when shipped to French research agency Leti and Taiwanese foundry TSMC next year. The company plans to use clustering of multiple beam sources to boost throughput to 10WPH and ultimately 100WPH in time for the 16nm process node. Mapper's value proposition will hinge on throughput per unit investment; they hope to sell machines for €5 million, more than an order of magnitude less than EUV systems' expected pricetags. Beam control will be their big challenge; their demonstration exposures looked very good.
Another cool graphical presentation came from EUV source supplier Xtreme Technologies, which showed very intriguing cutaway CAD drawings of its laser-assisted discharge plasma technology. It involves two wheels of tin rotating in liquid tin, with a laser pulsing to create discharges at 10,000 Hz (future units could go as high as 100,000 Hz if needed for volume production throughput). The assembled and housed unit will weigh about eight tons, and be equipped with a collimator and extensive internal shielding to prevent tin contamination. While some refinement is needed, Xtreme's Marc Corthout said, in essence, that the system is able to produce the needed power.
Luc van den Hove of Belgian research organization IMEC used his keynote talk to build an air of inevitability around EUV. He offered a vision of a highly networked future, and like Intel's Rama Shukla the day before, noted that video content (possibly including holograms) will be a huge bandwidth driver. As a result, he said, logic and memory makers alike will need EUV. Van den Hove said that the "three pillars of EUV" -- tools, masks, and resists -- are all proven feasible, and that while challenges remain with sources, adoption seems likely around the 11nm node.
While not everyone was quite that optimistic, there does seem to be an increasing sense of confidence in EUV compared to years past; it will be interesting to see how things evolve in the area over the next year or two as the technology moves into pre-production.
