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A giant bid to etch tiny circuits

Intel invests US$1 billion into extreme-ultraviolet light technology that will quarter the size of transistors.

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ASML

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to make these mirrors, says Jos Benschop, senior vicepresident for technology at onsumers take it for granted that ASML. The bad news, he adds, is that even their mobile phones and laptops these specialized mirrors made from will get faster and more powerful 80alternating layers of atomically smooth with each generation. After all, the semi silicon and molybdenum absorb a lot of conductor industry has always made it so, by EUV light, so the light must be very bright. doubling the number of transistors it can fit The dimmer the light, the longer it takes to onto a microchip every couple of years. But cure the photoresist, and because lithography current techniques are reaching their limit. is the slowest step in microchip manufacture, Now, the industry is racing to develop an the strength of the EUV source is the key to economically viable way to etch even smaller keeping costs down. The first generation of features onto microchips. The solution could EUV sources offered only about 10watts of be a technique called extremeultraviolet light, enough to pattern just 10silicon wafers (EUV) lithography, which uses veryshort an hour. Benschop says that commercial wavelength light to create features that systems must reach 200watts and pattern are four times finer than those on current at least 100wafers an hour. To reach these microchips. But overcoming the chemistry, goals, ASML is working with two compa physics and engineering challenges involved ASML devices make EUV light by turning tin into plasma. nies: Cymer in San Diego, California; and is costing the industry billions of dollars. XTREME Technologies, in Aachen, Ger On 9 July, Intelthe worlds largestmanu already been optimized to the extreme, says many, a subsidiary of Tokyobased Ushio. facturer of microchipsannounced that it Luc Van den hove, chief executive of Imec, a Cymer, for instance, is finetuning a system would invest 3.3 billion (US$4.1 billion) in nanoelectronics research company in Leuven, that uses a 20kilowatt laser to blast droplets ASML in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, the lead Belgium, that works with the semiconductor of tin into a 500,000degree plasma that emits ing supplier of lithography equipment to the industry to test EUV lithography equipment. EUV light. semiconductor industry. Onequarter of that ASML has just a few years to reach its goal. is earmarked for research and development DOWN, DOWN, DOWN Intel says that it can use the current technology (R&D) of EUV equipment. The situation The only way to pattern smaller features is to for two more generations of microchips, but has changed from, Can we make it work? to shorten the wavelength used. Lowering it to only by adding expensive patterning steps and We have to make it work, says Stefan Wurm, 13.5nm should allow microchip factories to buying more lithography machines. Benschop director of lithography at Sematech, a semicon produce features of 5nm or smaller. But such admits that EUV technology should have been ductor R&D consortium in Albany, New York. a dramatic shortening will require a rethink of ready yesterday. The integrated circuit pattern on a microchip the optics, photoresists, masks and light source While it rushes to get the first EUV is made by shining light through a mask onto a behind lithography systems. Most parts of the lithography systems ready for production, silicon wafer that is coated with lightsensitive process are ready for prime time, but the light ASML faces another challenge from Intel. Cir material called a photoresist. Where light hits source still presents problems. cuits are typically etched on to 300mmwide the photoresist, it cures a pattern onto the sur Almost all materials even airabsorb silicon wafers, but the chip giant wants to move face of the chip that is then etched in chemi light with wavelengths as short as 13.5nm, so to 450mmwide wafers for EUV lithography. cally. The smallest features on todays chips the process needs to be take place in a vacuum. The shift could double the number of circuits are 22 nanometres across, and are imprinted And because the light cannot be guided with that can be patterned at oncebut it would using deep ultraviolet light, typically with a conventional mirrors and lenses, optics maker also require ASML to develop new manufactur wavelength of around 193nm. Even that is a Carl Zeiss, headquartered in Oberkochen, ing equipment, which Intel wants by 2016. The struggle, requiring tricks such as immersing the Germany, has had to come up with alternative R&D challenges ASML is facing are enormous, lens in water and using two exposure steps. Its designs. The good news is, Zeiss knows how says Van den hove.