Recently, Huawei claimed to make a breakthrough in EUV light source design and filed a patent. Obviously, they have a long way to go, but could they eventually pull it off and break ASML's monopoly in EUV?
Huawei confirms breakthrough in EUV lithography process optimization
- Thread starter lefty
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Mooredaddy
Well-known member
Recall that ASML is a system integrator. The I.P and components that go into an EUV machine come from all of the world. Authoring a patent based on the research of others who have already laid the path for you is one thing. Integrating the entire system of suppliers is another. I personally find it doubtful that China much less Huawei can stand up companies the likes of Cymer, Zeiss etc in anywhere where near under a decade at best. China has made it very clear they want to make an entirely autarkic semi ecosystem which is not conducive to neither speed of development or success in the first place. Others may disagree with me but I find the prospects of home grown EUV in China far fetched to say the least.
I certainly hope so. Monopolies are not good in any industry especially semiconductors. Unfortunately, based on my personal experience in China, I would bet against it. The semiconductor industry moves fast and it will be difficult for any country to go it alone and keep up with the other countries who work together. It really does take a village to raise a semiconductor.
The patent looks a bit dodgy .. extra reflection in the optics path to eliminate speckle from coherent EUV source .. say what? Even beam lines are not coherent, so this looks like speculative work by someone with no access to a real source. If anything, argues Huawei got nothing, yet.
Not with this invention or what it implies. The device requires or assumes the coherent light from a synchrotron undulator or free electron laser. Synchrotrons have been applied for X-ray lithography before. What would be different would be a highly absorbent wavelength. The wafer itself is in a hydrogen-containing ambient, it cannot be linked to the synchrotron, which is at a much higher vacuum.
Isn't the hydrogen there mostly to scrub tin?
They are focusing hotly on EUV light sources which are coherent, like lasers or synchrotron under certain conditions such as https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35228673/
With high coherence, they need to beware of unwanted fringes. In fact, coherence is commonly reduced for that purpose.
Besides the tin in the collector, also the hydrocarbons on the projection optics.
Wow, that is a beast. 50m diameter, 2.1MW, at the research scale.
The coherence is surprisingly good, but it is not clear if every bunch will deliver identical speckle. The burst rate is very high and the mask scans, which should give an averaging effect equivalent to what this extra spinning mirror is trying to do. Without another loss in an extra mirror.