Just how fast will 193-nm litho take over?
semibiznews.com
Some good information in this story. Unit estimates this far out should be taken with a grain of salt, but they are interesting anyway.
Total market unit shipment estimates by wavelength(Dataquest):
'00 units '01 units '02 units '03 units
193nm 24 54 84 167
248nm 632 859 913 792
total 656 913 997 959
On the competition at 193nm:
The three big litho vendors also are going their different ways with argon-fluoride laser light sources. SVGL uses one from Lambda Physik while Nikon gets its source from Cymer Inc. Proprietary differences in the lasers from the two major suppliers will mean that most tool makers will end up using either one or the other, says Pascal Didier, Cymer senior vice president of customer operations.
But ASML will supply 193-nm tools with either the Lambda Physik or the Cymer laser, says Von Attekum, depending on customer preference. He concedes that the two lasers can't be used interchangeably, so ASML will have two versions of its 193-nm tool, one for each illuminator.
Another laser supplier also hopes to gain a foothold in this deep-UV lithography market. Japan's Komatsu Ltd. already has developed its 193-nm argon fluoride laser. But none of the new high-powered lasers will be easy to design into lithography imaging systems. For one thing, they can easily damage lenses in the 193-nm tools.
One way to eliminate much of the thermal stress that could damage the sensitive optics is to fabricate lenses with calcium fluoride. There was some initial worry that the calcium fluoride material could turn into a major supply problem. But most tool makers now agree that this is no longer an issue.
SVGL's Shamaly says the Micrscan-193 gets around this problem by using proprietary catadioptic lenses that require less calcium fluoride material. The lens design also is inherently more resistant to thermal stress from the high-power 193-nm laser, he says, Didier said
Cymer's argon fluoride laser has doubled the operational pulse rate to 4-kiloHertz and cut the power in half to 5 millijoules per pulse as compared with its existing 248-nm laser, says Didier. "This allows a calcium fluoride lens to handle the high power laser without the threat of thermal damage," he claims.
Japan's Seiko Epson turns out 248-nm krypton fluoride lasers for Nikon and Canon tools under license from Cymer. But Cymer will produce all the new 193-nm lasers initially at its San Diego plant, Didier notes. "We will transfer technology to Sieko Epson after the manufacturing process is mature," he says. Cymer will do it the same way with its upcoming argon fluoride laser, adds Didier. |
