By Vivek Bakshi, EUV Litho, Inc.
Latest news on EUVL technology status is a topic of much interest to community involved in making high‑end next generation computer chips. Next month, we will have the leading EUVL suppliers, chipmakers and researchers in Berkeley giving us the updates on short- and long-term focus areas for EUVL. I would like to summarize what I expect to be the highlights and their significance for us.
Focus on EUVL is on two fronts. First is progress in the short-term focus area that will decide how quickly, as well as how effectively (throughput and cost of ownership or COO) EUVL is being used in fabs. Topics in this category are source availability (which relates to cost of ownership), pellicles and patterning status.
We will have a manufacturing update from ASML, GlobalFoundries and Intel on these topics in their keynote and invited talks. Gigaphoton (GP), 2nd supplier of EUV sources for scanners, will talk about their new collector design with a longer lifetime (hoping for a better COO). Inpria and JSR will provide updates on the progress of EUV resists. An invited talk from IMEC will give the latest on patterning performance of EUVL from their fabs – where they are working with leading chipmakers and suppliers to prepare EUVL for manufacturing.
The second topic relates to longer term progress, as EUVL is a multi-node patterning technology expected to take us to the end of Moore’s Law. Top topics are higher NA (0.55) EUVL scanner, pathways to increase power closer to 500 W and even higher, actinic patterned mask inspection (APMI) and resist performance (stochastics, LER, micro-bridging, etc.). We will have invited talks from ASML and Zeiss on optics and design of high NA scanners. Both ASML and Gigaphoton will talk about their power scaling plans, together with several papers on EUV source fundamentals needed to ensure scaling.
I am excited about the new free-electron laser (FEL) based technology from Lyncean that they claim can provide standalone 1 kW EUV Source, based on FEL. KEK from Japan is also going to report on the progress on their FEL based EUV source technology. As APMI tools using conventional EUV sources have not been ready, the focus has moved to HHG based EUV sources for enabling mask defect inspection. These tools use alternative imaging and processing techniques, which will be described in several papers. There will be a keynote talk from Prof. Margaret Murnane, whose company has been a leading supplier of HHG sources and now plans for its increasing use in the support of lithography, including mask inspection. Veeco, maker of EUV mask blank deposition tool, used by all mask blank makers, will report on the progress of their technology to further reduce mask blank defects. There also will be several papers on resist fundamentals, which is a key knowledge enabling EUV resist readiness for future nodes.
Like previous years, we expect to hear good discussions and to generate new ideas. We plan to deliver lots of new information in just two days (over 40 papers including a poster session, which is more than many other larger conferences) in a more personal and informal setting. The workshop is from June 12-15, 2017 at CXRO in Berkeley, CA. More information is at www.euvlitho.com.
A final note: I believe that for better understanding of EUVL – status, challenges and opportunities – it is important to study its fundamental components. There are several components (source, mask, optics, imaging and resists) and they are different than current immersion lithography. At least a comprehensive overview of these components is a must. Hence, in the EUVL Workshop we dedicate one full day to study of fundamentals with experts. So please look for my next blog, “Understanding EUVL Basic and Status – Top Key Concepts,” at this site for further details.
