By Vivek Bakshi, EUV Litho, Inc.

During this year’s SPIE Advanced Lithography conference in San Jose, there was a definite switch to optimism about EUVL from all keynote speakers. The message of “Not if, but when” for EUVL ‒ with early adoption expected in coming years ‒ was clearly heard from leading-edge chip makers and EUVL suppliers. With demonstration of 200 W source in the lab and steady progress on source power and availability, the focus has now shifted to fab productivity, mask, pellicles and resists.

This year’s 2016 EUVL Workshop is being held in Berkeley, CA, organized in cooperation with CXRO. With keynotes from Intel, GlobalFoundries and ASML, along with 45 speakers and about 50 papers, we expect to hear a good bit of new information on these topics and stimulating discussion of R&D topics. In addition, we will hear about alternate actinic inspection techniques and fundamentals of EUV resists. For EUV resist, where the chemistry is dominated by secondary electrons, researchers are looking into understanding chemical reactions in this new realm to develop resists that pattern better at EUV wavelengths.

I am looking forward to finding out the latest on EUVL in this workshop. The final agenda and abstract book is available at www.euvlitho.com