Jan. 26, 2006 – XTREME Technologies GmbH, based in Gottingen and Jena, Germany, announced it has received funding from Intel Capital, Intel Corp.’s strategic investment arm, to accelerate development of its extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light source for photolithography applications. A corresponding strategic investment agreement was signed in late December.

“This investment enables us to expand our development efforts and to strengthen our leadership position in the emerging EUV market,” said Uwe Stamm, president of XTREME Technologies, in a prepared statement. The companies did not disclose the size of the investment.

According to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), EUV lithography is being developed because current chip printing technology that uses ultraviolet light does not support printing the tiny features that will be required in the next few years as transistors and other circuit elements of computer chips shrink in size.

EUV lithography uses light with a very short wavelength of only 13.5nm, versus the 193nm wavelength of today. ITRS anticipates that EUV lithography will start displacing existing lithography techniques by the end of the decade for production of leading-edge semiconductor chips with critical dimensions of 32nm or smaller.

XTREME Technologies is a technology joint venture between Jenoptik AG and Ushio Inc. It was founded in April 2001.

– David Forman