Extreme ultraviolet lithography
Litografía ultravioleta extrema (EUV)
- Date
- 2019 · confidence high
- Place
- ASML, Veldhoven, Netherlands (laser by Trumpf and optics by Zeiss)
- Credited to
- ASML with Zeiss, Trumpf and Cymer; earlier research at Lawrence Livermore and Sandia
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Machine that prints circuits with 13.5 nm light generated by vaporising tin droplets with a laser and reflected by atomically precise mirrors. It is the most complex machine ever built and unique in the world.
The first chips produced in volume with EUV were Samsung's and TSMC's in 2019.
What it led to
- 7, 5 and 3 nm chips for phones and AI accelerators
- Semiconductor geopolitics: export controls to China
- A European technological monopoly in the global supply chain
Built on
- Planar process1959
- immersion photolithography
- high-power CO2 laser
Made possible
- Apple M1 system-on-chip2020
- 3 nm chips
- Nvidia H100
- Apple A and M series (chips)