Operating without EUV pellicles: multiple inspections per day

[Fred Chen]

ASML SPIE 2019: https://www.researchgate.net/public...article_contamination_control_in_EUV_scanners

Without EUV pellicles, there will be a requirement of inspecting every few hundred wafers, multiple times per day, assuming EUV throughput to be something like 1500 wafers per day. Each inspection takes well over an hour (see WEREWOLF article here: https://spie.org/Documents/Membership/BacusNewsletters/BACUS-Newsletter-November-2018.pdf) so this is a nontrivial throughput cost.

 

[coldsolder215]

A former IBM x-ray lithographer (took their first round of voluntary severance back in 2000) tells me EUV is a sunk cost fallacy perpetuated by the Dutch. He might be biased but it is looking more like a boon for tool makers, not chip makers.