EUV lithography: past, present and future

Abstract

Extreme UltraViolet (EUV) lithography has come a long way since the pioneering work in the mid 1980’s. In 2019 the first commercially available smartphones, which included IC’s made with EUV, demonstrated that EUV had entered high volume manufacturing. In the presentation a brief review will be given how many technology obstacles in the scanner and the scanner infrastructure have been overcome. Next an overview of current status of 0.33 numerical aperture scanner and the infrastructure will be shared as well as the impact it has on the semiconductor industry. A next step in the EUV technology will be the realization of an 0.55 numerical aperture EUV scanner, a project well under way. After introduction of the first NA=0.55 scanner further innovations in scanner, mask and resist are foreseen, they will further reduce the “k1” factor and enable a continuation of shrinkage well into the next decade. A shift to smaller wavelength and/or larger numerical aperture are both being explored. They will come with significant technical and business challenges. Some of the key technical challenges presented as a challenge towards to litho community.