ASML on Thursday said that it had shipped its pilot Excessive-NA EUV scanner to Intel. The Twinscan EXE:5000 excessive ultraviolet (EUV) scanner is AMSL’s very first Excessive-NA scanner, and it has eagerly been awaited by Intel, who first positioned an order for the machine again in 2018. Intel can be utilizing the brand new machine to experiment with Excessive-NA EUV earlier than it deploys industrial grade Twinscan EXE:5200 instrument for high-volume manufacturing (HVM) someday in 2025. The announcement represents a serious trade milestone that may have an effect not solely on Intel, however finally on the opposite modern fabs as effectively.
“We’re transport the primary Excessive NA system and introduced this in a social media put up right now,” a spokesperson for ASML stated. “It goes to Intel as deliberate and introduced earlier.”
The ASML Twinscan EXE Excessive-NA scanner is about to make its journey from Veldhoven within the Netherlands all the best way to Intel’s facility close to Hillsboro, Oregon, the place the instrument, jokingly referred to by Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger as Dr. Ann Kelleher’s Christmas current, can be put in within the coming months. It’s fairly a colossal piece of kit – so massive, actually, that it requires 13 truck-sized containers and 250 crates simply to move it. And as soon as assembled, the machine is 3 tales tall, which has required Intel to construct a brand new (and taller) fab growth simply to accommodate it. It’s estimated that every of those Excessive-NA EUV scanners comes with a hefty price ticket, possible within the vary between $300 million and $400 million.
Excessive numerical aperture (Excessive-NA) EUV lithography instruments that includes a 0.55 NA lens are able to an 8nm decision, which is a big enchancment in comparison with present EUV instruments with a 13nm decision. These next-generation Excessive-NA EUV scanners are anticipated to be essential for chip manufacturing utilizing course of applied sciences past 3nm, which the trade is about to undertake in 2025 – 2026, as they are going to enable fabs to keep away from utilizing EUV double patterning, drastically lowering complexity whereas doubtlessly enhancing yields and reducing prices.
However ASML’s Twinscan EXE lithography instruments with a 0.55 NA can be considerably completely different than the corporate’s common Twinscan NXE litho machines with a 0.33 NA. An avid reader will bear in mind from our earlier studies that Excessive-NA scanners are going to be considerably larger than modern EUV scanners, which would require new fab constructions. However these is by far not the one distinction.
Maybe the most important change between the Excessive-NA and common EUV scanners is the halved reticle measurement of the Excessive-NA scanners, which would require chipmakers to rethink how they design and produce chips – particularly at a time when high-end GPUs and AI accelerators are pushing the boundaries for reticle sizes. As well as, since Excessive-NA scanners will assist the next decision and completely different reticle measurement, they are going to require new photoresists, metrology, pellicle supplies, masks, and inspection instruments, simply to call a few of the alterations. Briefly, Excessive-NA instruments would require vital investments in infrastructure to go along with them.
Though semiconductor manufacturing infrastructure is developed by the entire trade, one of the simplest ways to undertake it for real-world manufacturing is to tailor it for precise course of applied sciences and course of recipes. Which is why it’s so essential to begin working with pilot scanners early to arrange for HVM utilizing manufacturing machines.
Intel was the primary firm to order ASML’s pilot Twinscan EXE:5000 scanner again in 2018. It was additionally the primary to position an order for ASML’s industrial grade Twinscan EXE:5200 litho instrument in 2022. The corporate is about to begin improvement work on its 18A node (18 angstroms, 1.8nm) in 2024 after which will make use of Excessive-NA instruments for a post-18A node, presumably in 2025 – 2026.
By getting Excessive-NA instruments sooner than its rivals, Intel not solely be capable of make sure that its instruments produce desired outcomes, nevertheless it has an opportunity to set the requirements for the trade in terms of Excessive-NA manufacturing. For Intel this would possibly imply getting a big benefit over its rivals, Samsung Foundry and TSMC.
ASML introduced in 2022 that it will likely be capable of produce 20 Excessive-NA EUV litho instruments per yr in 2027 – 2028. In the meantime, the corporate disclosed earlier this yr is that it had a double-digit variety of machines in its Excessive-NA backlog, which alerts that its companions are set to undertake these scanners within the coming years. And main that pack can be Intel.
