New venture to commercialize EUV litho technology

07/01/1998

New venture to commercialize EUV litho technology

A newly formed private corporation, United States Advanced Lithography, is seeking $50 million in funding to develop extreme UV lithography under license from the Extreme UV Limited Liability Corp. (EUV LLC), and will also keep open the possibility of commercializing other post-optical litho technologies.

USAL is the brainchild of Art Zafiropoulo, chairman, CEO, and president of Ultratech Stepper, Santa Clara, CA. Ultratech will have an equity stake of less than 20% in the new organization. Other investors are being sought from the ranks of US-based chip and equipment companies, and from venture capitalists; no group will be permitted to hold more than 20% equity, and no public funds will be sought, said Zafiropoulo.

No decisions have been made on where the new company will be based or who will lead it. Zafiropoulo said locations in California, Texas, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are under consideration, and that Ultratech`s top technologist Dave Markle, who has worked on EUV since 1990, "will be involved in some capacity." Other personnel will be added in the next few weeks, he added.

Nor has there been a decision on shifting all of Ultratech`s modest EUV development effort to USAL, he added. One reason for establishing USAL was to offload some of this from Ultratech; "I don`t believe I have the will of the shareholders" to support internal development, said Zafiropoulo. Some sort of services contracting deal between USAL and Ultratech is a possibility.

USAL`s initial mission will be to perform system integration, test, marketing, sales, and service for litho tools based on technology being developed by the EUV LLC, a consortium of Intel, Motorola, and AMD and a group of US National Laboratories. The $50 million in startup funding should cover costs through completion of a preproduction tool based on the engineering test stand system currently being built at Sandia National Laboratory. Then, in the 2000-2001 time frame, additional funding will be needed to begin production of machines for sale, initially to EUV LLC member companies only. This $100 million or so could be raised through a public stock offering, which would allow early investors to cash out if they desired, said Zafiropoulo.

Other companies will also have the right to build EUV tools under license. SVG Lithography has already obtained such a license, and several non-US litho companies have been in negotiations; an EUV LLC spokesman said the consortium would like to see all lithography suppliers signed up, but no word was available on whether or when further licenses might be granted. "We`d like to get additional suppliers on board as soon as possible, but it has to match up," the spokesman said.

Zafiropoulo said other post-optical technologies could be taken up by USAL, but noted, "EUV is the most promising. It has the ability to produce the number of wafers/hr that`s needed - you have to be at 50 or 60, 300-mm wafers/hr....I think all the (post-optical) techniques would work, and succeed if they had the proper funding. The question is, how do they get funded? EUV has Intel leading the charge, and the backing of major US companies." - P.N.D.