ASML's machines seen slashing cost of chips
Tue Jul 11, 2006 3:00 PM ET
By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
VELDHOVEN, Netherlands, July 11 (Reuters) - ASML <ASML.AS> <ASML.O> unveiled on Tuesday a new machine that will make smaller and cheaper memory chips, and puts the Dutch company ahead in the race to slash chip production costs.
ASML's new machine will cut the production price of a typical memory chip to 1.20 euros from 3.25 euros, Martin van den Brink, ASML's <ASML.O> executive vice-president for marketing and technology, told journalists.
Van den Brink said the key to the new machine is a numerical aperture (NA) of 1.35. The NA will enable ASML, the world's largest maker of semiconductor lithography machines, to project thinner circuits on silicon wafers.
"This is the machine with the highest NA in the industry," said Van den Brink, adding that the new machine marked the end of the road for the current chip production technology which uses water between the lens and the wafer for sharper images.
"This is our practical limit. We don't think we can make a bigger lens with water," he said.
Chip makers are in a race to halve the production cost per function of a chip every 12 to 24 months, known as Moore's Law, named after the co-founder of Intel who predicted this trend more than 30 years ago.
In order to continue Moore's Law by the end of the decade ASML said it needs to change to a new light source, called extreme ultraviolet (EUV). Two EUV prototype systems are currently being shipped to test facilities, but it is not yet clear if the technology is fit for commercial chip production.
With an NA of 1.35, ASML said its new 1900i machine can help memory semiconductor producers make chips with features as small as 40 nanometres. A nanometre is a billionth of a meter.
"And with some processing tricks in the future we believe we will be able to bring it down to 32 nanometres," Van den Brink said.
Current, top-of-the-range machines produce chips at around 45 nanometres. Cutting that to 32, means that more than twice as many of the same chips can be cut from a single wafer.
Even taking into account the higher price for the machine and design, the cost per chip will almost halve, Van den Brink said.
Van den Brink said ASML will start delivering the machines to customers, which include No. 1 Intel Corp <INTC.O>, No. 2 Samsung and Taiwan's Semiconductor Manufacturing <2330.TW>, the world's largest contract chip maker, in the second quarter of 2007.
Arch rival, Japan's Nikon Corp <7731.T> will start selling a machine with an NA of 1.3 by late 2006.
ASML, which also competes with Canon Inc <7751.T>, has more than 50 percent of the world market for lithography machines, which form the heart of the chip-making process. |
