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Commercial breakthrough in EUV lithography

28.03.2019

Collector mirror for an EUVL plasma source, mounted on the sample goniometer inside PTB’s EUV reflectometer. (Photo: Fraunhofer IOF and CYMER)

The announcement made by the large semiconductor manufacturers Samsung and TSMC in autumn 2018 that they are going to use EUV lithography for the manufacturing of high-end processors marks the commercial breakthrough of this technology after a long development phase. PTB has contributed to this development in metrological matters through its work at the synchrotron radiation sources BESSY II and MLS in Berlin-Adlershof. For 20 years now, PTB has been supporting the Carl Zeiss SMT company in the development of optical systems for EUV lithography by means of at-wavelength metrology with synchrotron radiation. PTB also cooperates with the Dutch company ASML which – with the optical systems of Carl Zeiss – currently has a worldwide leading position in the field of EUV lithography machines.

 

Besides the continuous further development of EUV lithography machines for structure widths of 3 nm and below, PTB is faced with new – and still increasing – challenges at BESSY II and at MLS due to the development of new measurement procedures for the characterization of nanostructures with the aid of EUV radiation. Based on a measurement time of currently more than 6,000 hours per year at the two EUV beamlines at BESSY II and at MLS, excellent perspectives are opening up for this field of activity, also with respect to a future synchrotron radiation source BESSY III.

Contact:

M. Richter, 7.1, E-Mail: Opens window for sending emailMathias.Richter(at)ptb.de

F. Scholze, 7.12, E-Mail: Opens window for sending emailFrank.Scholze(at)ptb.de

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