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Technology Stocks : ASML Holding NV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (995)	4/13/2005 7:58:49 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 43397

ASML's EUV litho alpha tool nears completion, says Zeiss Peter Clarke EE Times (04/13/2005 6:48 AM EDT) MUNICH, Germany — A full field extreme ultra violet lithography (EUVL) stepper — a so called alpha machine — from ASML Holdings NV (Veldhoven, The Netherlands) is nearing completion with support from Carl Zeiss SMT AG (Oberkochen, Germany), according to a senior executive from Zeiss. Speaking in a lithography conference session on the show floor at the Semicon Europa exhibition, Peter Kuerz, senior EUV systems manager for Carl Zeiss SMT AG, said his company had successfully produced five out of the six lenses required by the alpha machine and the sixth lens was under construction. Kuerz said the six lenses would be installed in the ASML alpha machine in the coming months, probably by about August, and in time to allow ASML to deliver the alpha machine by the end of 2005. Kuerz stressed that there were no show stoppers in EUV lithography with the optical work having gone well at Carl Zeiss and recent progress in high-energy optical sources putting them within sight of the 100-watts required for 100 wafer per hour production machines. "Towards the end of the decade we will have this technology production ready," said Kuerz. "We already have micro exposure tools producing 30-nanometer features but of course this are small field, two mirror systems. ASML's roadmap shows the EUV lithography stepper becoming available by the end of 2010. Kuerz said the move to tin as the source for high-energy optical source had provided a big step up from xenon source allowing a 27-watt source to be installed in the ASML alpha tool, which would be suitable for 10 wafer per hour with 5-millijoule per square centimeter sensitivity resist. "The collector module has been shipped to ASML and we have finished nearly all the mirrors." One of the key issues to be faced with the optical system are potential contamination problems due to oxidation and carbonization. Experiments at a synchrotron have built up 230 hours of continuous exposure. " We don't see any significant loss of reflectivity," said Kuerz who added that, based on extrapolation from the synchrotron results the ASML alpha tool was being specified with at least 1000 hours use. "Pulsed source experiments have been started and seem even better than the synchrotron results," he added. Kuerz said 30,000 hours would be a good target for production EUVL tools to aim for. Questions from the floor of the show asked Kruez to address contamination of the collector module and the progress in non-contaminating high resolution resists. Kuerz referred to Philips Xtreme presentation at the SPIE Lithography conference in March which outlined a the possibility of cleaning the collector. "What has not been proved is the number of cycles that can be endured," said Kruez. With regard to resists he added: "The resist is still a very hot issue in EUV. Is it possible to have a fast resist. A fast resist would be better. To avoid contamination we have system of molecular flow to prevent contamination getting to the optics."