tag: EUV

Debate Heats Up Over Bigger Glass
By Mark LaPedus - 17 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

For more than two decades, photomask makers have been talking about moving to a new and larger mask size, sometimes called “bigger glass” by the industry. Generally, the discussions about “bigger glass” have been all talk and no action. But now, some chipmakers are turning up the volume in the discussions and are pushing for a larger mask size. A larger mask size would require the ph... » read more

Executive Briefing: Getting Direct On Litho
By Mark LaPedus - 17 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down and talked with David Lam, principal of the David Lam Group, an investment and advisory firm. Lam is also the chairman of Multibeam, a multi-beam equipment startup for direct-write lithography and other applications. He founded Lam Research in 1980 and left as an employee in 1985. He served on Lam Research’s board for five years after that. SE: Multibeam ... » read more

Challenges Mount For EUV Masks
By Mark LaPedus - 17 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

ASML Holding’s first production-worthy scanners for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography are expected to ship this year, but there are still a number of challenges to bring the technology into high-volume manufacturing. As before, the three main challenges for EUV are the power sources, resists and photomasks. To date, the resists are making progress, while the EUV power sources remain a ... » read more

The Brave New World Of FinFETs
By Ed Sperling - 10 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

SoCs using 16nm and 14nm finFETs are expected to begin rolling out next year using a 20nm back-end-of-line process. While the initial performance and power numbers are looking very promising, the challenges of designing and building these complex chips are daunting—and there are more problems on the way. First, the good news. Initial results from foundries show a 150% improvement in perfor... » read more

Why does EUV matter?
By Brian Bailey - 01 Oct, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Brian Bailey The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for almost as long as the law has existed. It normally comes down to some great technological barrier that cannot be breached, only to find that a solution is just around the corner and the concerns fade until the next barrier is identified. At DAC this year (2013), there were many predictions about why Moore’s Law will end in th... » read more

Time To Think
By Ed Sperling - 26 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry seems to be running place these days—maybe even sprinting in place. At the leading edge of design, companies are still looking at the ramifications of moving to finFETs. The move to a 20nm process with double patterning on 16/14nm finFETs, depending on the foundry, looks like a fairly safe bet for those companies with the volume and the resources to design and de... » read more

Risk Vs. Reward
By Ed Sperling - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

One of the most persistent business myths is that deep pockets in challenging times always win in the end. While that has proven a successful model in many industries where the barrier to entry is enormous and rising, in the technology world the outcome isn’t always what you’d expect even with those same variables. In fact, the history of technology is littered with former business giant... » read more

Litho Roadmap Remains Cloudy
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus For some time, the lithography roadmap has been cloudy. Optical lithography has extended much further than expected. And delays with the various next-generation lithography (NGL) technologies have forced the industry to re-write the roadmap on multiple occasions. Today, there is more uncertainty than ever in lithography. Until recently, for example, leading-edge logic chipma... » read more

Keeping EUV Cool
By Katherine Derbyshire - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 1

It’s been clear for a long time that EUV lithography sources will be fairly inefficient. The laser-produced plasma (LPP) source concept involves heating a droplet of metallic tin with a high-powered laser to produce a plasma. Only a fraction of the energy of the laser will be converted to light, rather than heat, and less than 1% of the light emitted by the plasma will be at EUV wavelengths. ... » read more

What’s After 3D NAND?
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Sep, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Planar NAND flash memory is on its last scaling legs, with 3D NAND set to become the successor to the ubiquitous 2D technology. Samsung Electronics, for one, already has begun shipping the industry’s first 3D NAND device, a 24-level, 128-gigabit chip. In addition, Micron and SK Hynix shortly will ship their respective 3D NAND devices. But the Toshiba-SanDisk duo are the lo... » read more

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