Zeiss Delivers EUV Optics to ASML
Carl Zeiss has delivered a complete EUV optical subsystem for the production-ready EUV scanners from ASML. The early ASML production systems, capable of 60 wph, are expected to ship in the second half of next year.
Staff -- Semiconductor International, 9/16/2009
Carl Zeiss SMT (Oberkochen, Germany) said it has delivered a complete EUV optical subsystem for the production-ready EUV lithography system now being readied by ASML (Veldhoven, Netherlands). The early production systems, capable of 60 wph throughput, are expected to begin shipping to five announced customers in the second half of next year for 22 nm development and production.
"Fifteen years ago, we launched research and development of EUV lithography and have invested far in excess of €100 million since then," said Peter Kürz, EUV program director at Carl Zeiss SMT. "To date, ASML has installed two process development tools around the globe. Now its use in the volume production of microchips is within reach."
The team developing the Zeiss EUV optics technology was nominated for the Future Award of the German Federal President in 2007. Development was supported by >€20 million ($29.45M) from the German Ministry of Education and Research, and from the European Union, Zeiss said.
"Our recent successes are important milestones which show that EUVL is making excellent progress as a cost-effective single patterning technology," said Christian Wagner, senior product manager at ASML. "EUVL has the resolution power to carry Moore's Law beyond the next decade."
IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) recently reported the use of its process-development-level EUV scanner for exposure of 22 nm SRAM cells, resulting in a 44% reduction in die area. Also, Zeiss took note of progress at Cymer Inc. (San Diego), which recently delivered an EUV source for integration into ASML's EUVL production systems due in 2010.
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Curious how you would test such a subsystem without an actual source.
curious - 9/17/2009 8:13:56 AM CDT
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