ASML has reached A Dutch semiconductor equipment maker announced Wednesday that it has achieved “first light” on a large-scale new high-NA EUV lithography system. This is a milestone that means the tool is working, but not at full performance.
Ann Kelleher, Intel's head of technology development, first mentioned the advance in a talk Tuesday at the SPIE Lithography Conference in San Jose.
ASML acknowledged that Mr. Kelleher's statements were accurate.
Lithography systems use focused beams of light to help create tiny circuits on computer chips. ASML's high NA EUV tools, about the size of a double-decker bus and costing more than US$350 million each, are expected to help enable a new generation of smaller, faster chips.
The first existing high-NA tool is at ASML's research lab in Veldhoven, Netherlands, and the second is being assembled at an Intel facility near Hillsboro, Oregon.
Advanced chipmakers such as TSMC and Samsung Electronics are expected to adopt the tool over the next five years, and Intel said at an event last week that it intends to use it in production of its 14A generation chips. .
“First Light”
In Kelleher's talk, she said Veldhoven's machine “saw the first light on a wafer in resist.” This means the machine was used to test silicon wafers that have been treated with photosensitive chemicals and are ready for resist. Receive the circuit pattern.
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An ASML spokesperson said the first minor milestone was reached “very recently.” — Toby Sterling, (c) 2024 Reuters