August 10, 2011 – Gigaphoton expects to deliver an EUV source to ASML at the beginning of 2012. In the meantime, the company is focusing on throughput, conversion efficiency, and debris mitigation with its EUV source. Phil Alibrandi, director of sales at the company, summarized the activities taking place to support these efforts in a video interview at SEMICON West 2011.

For example, by using superconducting magnets, ions can be moved away from the collector mirror, thereby avoiding mirror damage. The goal is to make the mirror last a year. The company has also been able to achieve a removal of ~92% of ions from the collector mirror, leaving only about 7% of ions to be swept away by the etch gas used to keep the collector mirror clean in the EUV source. With a conversion efficiency above 3, "this is perhaps some of the best results seen to date," said Alibrandi. "But the industry’s target is 5 and everyone has a long way to go." The company considers that its pre-pulse, debris mitigation and other improvements, could make this a very economical option in a couple of years.

In the interview, Alibrandi also discussed the status of the company’s DUV technology milestones. Smart diagnostics (where the laser self-corrects its own parameters) and focused drilling (a way to get better yield at the contact layer) are improvements that, with others, can extend the technology another generation until EUV is ready to go, he said.