FEATURE LITHOGRAPHY
➤ Trumpf announced plans recently for a facility in Ditzingen, Germany, to host production of the giant lasers needed for EUV lithography. The facility represents an investment of €70 million, and production should begin in 2017. Von Borstel said: ‘It will provide the capacity to support the EUV ramp that we anticipate on that time scale. Construction challenges are the energy, cooling and clean room facilities in the building, which outnumber the entire infrastructure currently available at our Ditzingen site.’ If EUV lithography systems were to go into full-scale production, there would be wider implications for the laser manufacturing world, according to Hans Meiling, vice president of EUV service and product marketing at ASML: ‘We use a high-powered CO2
laser in the EUV source, so every EUV system that we ship will need one. Generally speaking (not specific to lasers), volume production also brings additional requirements compared with R&D environments. In manufacturing, our customers run our systems 24/7, and downtime, especially unscheduled downtime, impacts their production plans and can even mean they lose business.’ Meiling added: ‘There is thus a strong focus on high uptime of the entire system, fast spare parts availability, and a well-trained customer support organisation, to name just a few.’
For laser manufacturers, the challenge will be centred on meeting the high
The 2006 EUV demo tools demonstrated ASML’s commitment to developing the next phase of lithography – at 22nm and beyond. To date, the demo tools have printed 28nm chip features and confirmed the technology’s future viability
Production
timescales for EUV lithography now seem to be a question of when, not if
power demands of the lasers used in EUV lithography systems. Von Borstel said: ‘With EUV, we will see a serial production laser
system with 80kW CW laser output capability or more. This is a factor of 10 times above every commercially available laser today. The implication for laser operation and optical beam handling are huge.’ The design and operation of an EUV lithography system are complex and have wider implications within the photonics industry. Fundamentally, the EUV
source is a powerful and pulsed infrared laser system, which ignites EUV-emitting plasma into tin droplets 50,000 times per second.
‘Because no single laser could provide
sufficient power, we have a series of five laser amplifiers which are operated in series,’ Von Borstel remarked. ‘The beam exiting from each of these amplifiers is fed into the next for further amplification. Beam transport and focusing optics with more than 30 optical elements ensure a well-controlled focus of the infrared laser light on the tin droplets.’ This focus on improving the systems and
source powers will continue, as von Borstel added: ‘In the short term, further improving system availability has highest priority. In the mid term, source power will need to be scaled up further, in order to facilitate higher productivity for our customers. Trumpf is already working on how to scale up CO2
laser ASML’s TwinScan NXE platform is the industry’s first production platform for Extreme Ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) 38 ELECTRO OPTICS l FEBRUARY 2016
power to generate EUV power beyond 250W.’ Challenges may remain to move EUV lithography into mainstream production, but the mood is optimistic among those companies developing the optics and systems. ASML’s next generation EUV tool, the NXE:3350B, is poised and ready for shipment to a customer site and the company has demonstrated 130W of dose-controlled source power. Time will tell whether this optimism is matched with a production-ready EUV lithography system. If EUV lithography does move into the mainstream, then the impact on the wider laser manufacturing community will be considerable. l
@electrooptics |
www.electrooptics.com
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