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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (48483)	6/27/2001 3:58:20 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

EUV Lithography Process Prototyped In April of this year, a consortium of private companies and US government laboratories announced the prototype of a new lithographic method that would resume the relentless march towards increasing the number of transistors on a chip. Processors made with this technology will to be much faster - up to 10GHz by the year 2005. Known as Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography this new technology capitalizes on two modifications to older techniques: the use of extreme (very short wavelength) laser-generated UV light, which reduces the light used from 193nm to 13.4nm; and the use of mirrors instead of lenses to reduce the circuit patterns to be etched onto a chip. Mirrors, if polished to atom-level standards, sidestep the problems of aberration and distortion, which accompany images that are repeatedly projected through glass lenses. Use of mirrors is additionally important because wavelengths of 13.4nm cannot penetrate glass or normal atmospheric gases. To bridge the gap between prototype and production, new ways must be developed to protect the lithography process from contamination. In the future, a mirror-based system will consequently need to be contained within a vacuum. That will require a lot more investment by equipment manufacturers. Extending "Moore's Law" The EUV prototype may continue to fulfill the prediction made in 1965 by Intel Corp co-founder Gordon Moore, that the speed and power of computer chips would double every 18 months. This prediction has been dubbed "Moore's Law." However, as the limits of atomic physics were approached - at least with the existing lithographic techniques now in common use in the industry - it looked like Moore's Law was soon to expire. Indeed, Moore himself predicted in 1993 that those atomic limits - as well as the economic cost - would prevent designs from progressing below the 0.1micron limit. He presented his concerns at a technical conference in 1993 in a speech called "No Exponential Lasts Forever." Two issues concerned him. One was that gate oxides, which become thinner at every new generation, would result in excessive leakage at about 0.25micron. Happily for the industry, in that case his prediction proved inaccurate as gate oxide problems were overcome. His other concern was the limits of lithography. Once again, the ingenuity of the technical problem-solvers is pushing out the day when the number of circuits that can be imprinted on a chip will reach its limits. Contrary to what some analysts see as a new way to "break through physical limits," the EUV consortium is using existing technology in a novel way. It is the microscopic equivalent of converting from refracting to reflecting telescopes. The laws of physics remain intact. The Price of Progress Economic laws, whereby there must be a viable return on a financial investment for profits to occur, may be as much a problem for EUV as the laws of physics. The prototype system will cost an estimated US$1 billion to get the first working system in operation by 2005, according to Klaus-Dieter Rinnen, Gartner Dataquest analyst. Current plans are to have the EUV lithography in place by 2003 and first chip products available in 2005. The chip making industry will have to shift to a new way of manufacturing that requires scrapping old equipment and buying new. The scanners that prepare images for lithography will cost twice as much as present scanners, ranging from US$20-30 million. Chip circuits will measure a scant 0.03micron with operating speeds in excess of 10GHz. In contrast, the present state-of-the-art Pentium 4 processor has circuits about 0.1micron and an operating speed of 1.5 GHz. PCs produced with the new technology, expected in 2005, will represent a revolution in computing. To meet the staggering research and development costs, several US laboratories and private chipmakers are pooling resources, largely out of financial necessity. Over 40 US-based companies are part of the industry group, called the EUV Limited Liability Company (EUV LLC), including Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Micron Technology Inc, Infineon Technologies and IBM, among others. by Teri Sprackland and Robert Sprackland, Ph.D. (June 2001 Issue, Nikkei Electronics Asia)