November 14, 2012 - Swiss firm Adlyte, a developer of high-brightness laser-produced plasma (LPP) EUV light source for actinic mask inspection, is outlining its current expansion efforts, which includes appointing a longtime industry exec to its strategic advisory board.

At SPIE in early 2011, Adlyte described results with low conversion efficiency (~1%), but respectable source brightness in a compact footprint requiring lower power. More recently, at the EUV Symposium this fall, Adlyte updated its progress: a completed characterization of the engineering tool, a prototype now in development and bill-of-materials procurement completed, installation and integration planned for year's end, testing/demo in 1H13, followed by volume production. It claims 20W of power into 2π with >250W/mm² steradian brightness, which exceeds requirements for actinic mask and aerial image metrology (AIMS) system.

Building on that work, the firm has built a new facility that nearly triples the amount of available development space, and is building an additional light source to address requirements for actinic mask inspection, AIMS, and other types of inspection for sub-1x-nm devices. Adlyte also has appointed longtime semiconductor manufacturing exec Joseph R. Bronson (20+ years at Applied Materials, plus stints at FormFactor, Sanmina-SCI, and SVTC Technology) to its strategic advisory board.

“Adlyte is continuing its commitment to the semiconductor industry by assembling the team, products and executive management, which are required to implement EUV and enable the continuation of Moore's Law for the semiconductor industry,” stated Adlyte co-founder Reza S. Abhari.