May 18, 2011 — An Steegen, imec, shares how imec is helping enable Moore’s Law’s continuation to <10nm. Moore’s Law through 19nm could be lithography-enabled, Steegen says, but past that point we need to rely on materials, such as high-k, and new device architectures.

Steegen speaks with senior technical editor Debra Vogler.

Lithography will continue to scale, of course, Steegen says. Trigate FinFETs could be scaled into the next generation. When is the ArF/EUV lithography transition going to happen? Steegen says 22nm half pitch is the expected "wall" for ArF to hit, first in the memory sector. This is where the number of masks will be cost-prohibitive and process-prohibitive due to line-width control.

imec has been working on EUV for several years, and Steegen tells us how they’ve been developing processes and tool controls and performance. She also shares new developments on resists and masks. For more on this topic, see Steegen’s ConFab presentation summary on making progress with EUV.

More from the ConFab:

• Customers, logic reshaping supplier collaboration landscape
• Connecting investments to industry trends
• Preparing, recovering from the Japan quake: One company’s response and plan
• Silicon Valley upstate: NY’s semiconductor manufacturing ambitions
• 2012 and onward for semiconductor fab managers
• 3D packaging disrupts the IC supply chain 
• KLAC: Yields are key to low costs, in traditional chips and emerging LEDs
• Supply? Tight. Demand? High. Bill McClean forecasts a good year for ICs
• EUV, DSA ready at 11nm