5 ms·
It's partially that, but EUV litho is REALLY hard to make at a low enough resolution.
by deepnotderp 10y ago
It's partially that, but EUV litho is REALLY hard to make at a low enough resolution.
- kurthr 10y agoI'm not sure what you mean. EUV at 13nm (Extreme UV, after marketing with the name X-Ray Lithography failed) is much easier to make work at 10nm than the current multi-patterned immersion technology based on 193nm ArF excimer. http://www.anandtech.com/show/10097/euv-lithography-makes-good-progress-still-not-ready-for-prime-time http://www.anandtech.com/show/10097/euv-lithography-makes-go... The problem with EUV is that the source power (laser excitation of plasma) is too low, making exposure times too long for the expense of the equipment.
- dbcooper 10y ago"Shot noise" is a problem too, due to the high energy of the EUV photons.
- deepnotderp 10y agoYes that's true, but shot noise is a real problem.
- kurthr 10y agoYes, shot noise... secondary electrons, resist issues, mask issues are all real. Similar issues come up for immersion at these scales. It's no panacea (and hasn't even reached tact time parity), but nothing is at this point. What is amazing is that the investment in EUV has been going on for decades and still hasn't reach production. If they could run the EUV sources at 4 times their current power, there would be huge increases in equipment sales and conversely exposure and mask complexity would decrease substantially. Increased exposure dose could deal with some of the shot noise effects (only 3% at 10nm so less than 8% ITRS spec?). We would also probably see equipment free up to allow 14/20/28nm litho costs go down. So it's a win-win.