LITHOGRAPHY FEATURE
‘We [Europe] need to get our act together today to even come close to reaching the target [of 20 per cent semiconductor manufacturing share by 2030]’
New Acts intended to incentivise the semiconductor industries in the EU and US will likely lead to investment in ASML’s leading-edge lithographic tools, like this one at Imec
building a strong global ecosystem of suppliers, partners, academia, institutes and customers that contribute to our innovation, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. We can only pull off such feats of science and technology thanks to our ecosystem.’ All semiconductor innovators in the
regions seeking to grow their market share must get involved, said Jo De Boeck, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Imec, the Leuven, Belgium, semiconductor research centre. In Europe that will create ‘a very concerted action with a focus on building capacity’, he said. ‘The most important reason for doing pillar one is to get to pillar two, to make sure there’s more production globally, but also in the European market. Aiming at introducing more demand for the leading- edge nodes will become important for many
applications in Europe in the future.’ De Boeck especially stressed that
building more leading-edge fabs in the region requires effort to increase demand for the capabilities the resulting chips will offer. That will involve working to provide access to companies of all sizes and experience levels manufacturing products for, and offering services to, consumers. ‘If there is no demand, there is not going to be any economic decision to build a fab,’ De Boeck said. ‘So, pillar one will create a multitude of design centres across Europe, virtualising access to innovative pilot lines.’ In ‘every corner of Europe’, R&D teams will be able to ‘look ahead at the future, what the technologies can bring for their products and for their services’, De Boeck envisioned. Doing this will not necessarily involve explaining lithography technology in detail.
‘They need to know there is something there that can enable them to scale functionality, or reduce their costs, or increase their efficiency,’ said De Boeck. ‘We need to make sure there’s access to the technology that makes the use case eminent.’ Such design enablement needs to happen at a very early stage, perhaps two generations before technology is commercialised, he added. Large chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) already do this, De Boeck said. And now, Imec wants to similarly ‘interface with the customers of our customers’. Even though the vision of rebuilding semiconductor industries in Europe and the US are long term ones, they need to get started soon, De Boeck underlined. ‘2030 is some time away, but it’s coming fast because building fabs and building markets and market needs is an activity of years,’ he said. ‘So, we need to get our act together today to even come close to reaching the target.’ Europe may need $264bn of investment to reach a 20 per cent share of the semiconductor market as ASML suggests, but that can only be reached in stages by increasing demand, De Boeck said. ‘Doing nothing will definitely not bring any investments,’ he emphasised. EO
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