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Predicting EUV Stochastic Defect Density

Predicting EUV Stochastic Defect Density
by Fred Chen on 12-04-2022 at 6:00 am

Predicting EUV Stochastic Defect Density

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography targets patterning pitches below 50 nm, which is beyond the resolution of an immersion lithography system without multiple patterning. In the process of exposing smaller pitches, stochastic patterning effects, i.e., random local pattern errors from unwanted resist removal or lack … Read More


Electron Blur Impact in EUV Resist Films from Interface Reflection

Electron Blur Impact in EUV Resist Films from Interface Reflection
by Fred Chen on 11-08-2022 at 6:00 am

Electron Blur Impact in EUV Resist Films from Interface Reflection

The resolution of EUV lithography is commonly expected to benefit from the shorter wavelengths (13.2-13.8 nm) but in actuality the printing process needs to include Pde the consideration of the lower energy electrons released by the absorption of EUV photons. The EUV photon energy itself has a nominal energy range of 90-94 eV,… Read More


Is ASML Immune from China Impact?

Is ASML Immune from China Impact?
by Robert Maire on 10-21-2022 at 10:00 am

ASML China Immunity

-ASML has great QTR & Outlook & Huge Euro8.9B orders
-Relatively immune from China due to mainly non leading edge
-Monster Euro38B backlog – 60EUV & 375DUV systems in 2023
-5% China risk to 2023- still mainly supply constrained

ASML proves litho’s place at Apex of semiconductor food chain

ASML announced… Read More


Where Are EUV Doses Headed?

Where Are EUV Doses Headed?
by Fred Chen on 10-11-2022 at 6:00 am

Where Are EUV Doses Headed 1

In spite of increasing usage of EUV lithography, stochastic defects have not gone away. What’s becoming clearer is that EUV doses must be managed to minimize the impact from such defects. The 2022 edition of the International Roadmap for Devices and Systems has updated its Lithography portion [1]. An upward trend with decreasing… Read More


Application-Specific Lithography: 5nm Node Gate Patterning

Application-Specific Lithography: 5nm Node Gate Patterning
by Fred Chen on 09-08-2022 at 6:00 am

Blur Limitations for EUV Exposure

It has recently been revealed that the N5 node from TSMC has a minimum gate pitch of 51 nm [1,2] with a channel length as small as 6 nm [2]. Such a tight channel length entails tight CD control in the patterning process, well under 0.5 nm. What are the possible lithography scenarios?

Blur Limitations for EUV Exposure

A state-of-the-art

Read More

Spot Pairs for Measurement of Secondary Electron Blur in EUV and E-beam Resists

Spot Pairs for Measurement of Secondary Electron Blur in EUV and E-beam Resists
by Fred Chen on 08-14-2022 at 8:00 am

Spot Pairs for Measurement of Secondary Electron Blur in EUV

There is growing awareness that EUV lithography is actually an imaging technique that heavily depends on the distribution of secondary electrons in the resist layer [1-5]. The stochastic aspects should be traced not only to the discrete number of photons absorbed but also the electrons that are subsequently released. The electron… Read More


EUV’s Pupil Fill and Resist Limitations at 3nm

EUV’s Pupil Fill and Resist Limitations at 3nm
by Fred Chen on 08-08-2022 at 10:00 am

EUV Pupil Fill and Resist Limitations at 3nm p1

The 3nm node is projected to feature around a 22 nm metal pitch [1,2]. This poses some new challenges for the use of EUV lithography. Some challenges are different for the 0.33NA vs. 0.55NA systems.

0.33 NA

For 0.33 NA systems, 22 nm pitch can only be supported by illumination filling 4% of the pupil, well below the 20% lower limit for

Read More

ASML- US Seeks to Halt DUV China Sales

ASML- US Seeks to Halt DUV China Sales
by Robert Maire on 07-10-2022 at 6:00 am

China Semiocnductor Ban DUV EUV

-If you can’t beat them, embargo them
-It has been reported US wants ASML to halt China DUV tools
-US obviously wants to kill, not just wound China chip biz
-Is this embargo the alternative to failed CHIPS act?
-Hard to say “do as I say, not as I do”- but US does anyway

First EUV ban now DUV ban? Are process & yieldRead More


ASML EUV Update at SPIE

ASML EUV Update at SPIE
by Scotten Jones on 06-24-2022 at 6:00 am

12051 4 SPIE2022 Smeets 0.33 NA EUV systems for High Volume Manufacturing Page 07

At the 2022 SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference, ASML presented an update on EUV. I recently had a chance to go over the presentations with Mike Lercel of ASML. The following is a summary of our discussions.

0.33 NA

The 0.33 NA EUV systems are the production workhorse systems for leading edge lithography today. 0.33 NA systems are… Read More


Obscuration-Induced Pitch Incompatibilities in High-NA EUV Lithography

Obscuration-Induced Pitch Incompatibilities in High-NA EUV Lithography
by Fred Chen on 06-19-2022 at 10:00 am

High NA EUV Lithography 1

The next generation of EUV lithography systems are based on a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.55, a 67% increase from the current value of 0.33. It targets being able to print 16 nm pitch [1]. The High-NA systems are already expected to face complications from four issues: (1) reduced depth-of-focus requires thinner resists, which… Read More