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Score One for EUV
October 20, 2007
This week, we heard that IMEC would install a pre-production EUV lithography tool from ASML sometime in 2010, enabling 22 nm development. One more confidence vote for EUV.
As is widely known, the current 193 nm immersion system, with a numerical aperture (NA) only reaching as high as 1.35 (in theory, that is; in reality it’s a bit lower), is not likely to quite make it to a 32 nm half-pitch. So there’s an awful lot of indecision about what will be used to take its place. Much of the discussion, of course, isn’t really about “taking its place,” but rather helping it along even further — with double patterning/double exposure or with the incorporation of high-index materials (in theory, boosting the NA up to ~1.8, which would thereby improve resolution).
Earlier in the month, at the Immersion Symposium in Keystone, Colo., we heard a great deal about both high-index immersion and double patterning. We heard, in particular, about how the hoards of money being spent on EUV could be better spent (even just a little of it, please) on high-index lens research, for example (read previous blog entries for more).
But keep in mind that the crowd gathering in the thin air of the Colorado Rockies was an immersion-friendly crowd. By the end of the month, the EUV-friendly crowd will be gathering in Sapporo, Japan, to have its say at the EUVL Symposium.
IMEC currently has ASML’s alpha demo tool installed at its facility, and at IMEC’s Annual Research Review Meeting this week, they showed their first images (35 and 40 nm lines/spaces) printed with it. There have been several murmurs and grumblings about the demo tool, but obviously IMEC has enough confidence in the technology to give the next machine a go. Although ASML’s pre-production tool will have a lower throughput, it will more closely resemble the ultimate high-volume tool.
2010 is still a few years away, but it will be interesting to see what IMEC is able to achieve with the next tool.
Posted by Aaron Hand on October 20, 2007 | Comments (1)
