High-NA machines the 2nd EUV generation. ASML introduces a new generation, building on its success story with the euv machines. As small as the lines that can be made with high-NA, other numbers that characterize ASML’s new technology are immense. Whereas transporting an euv machine to the customer requires three Boeing 747s, high-NA requires seven.
New development
In Rotterdam, Nearfield, in cooperation with TNO, has developed a machine that checks quality at this high-NA level. In a clean room supplied by Highcare, these unique machines are commissioned under special air conditions and prepared for transport.
ASML
It took ASML 20 years to develop the first euv, and billions of research dollars were put into this project. Only in 2018 were the machines advanced enough to be used for chip production. High-NA is now quickly coming after the euv machines.
The development of euv was complex because the technology had implications for the system in and around the machine. euv uses a new kind of light source – extreme ultraviolet light, generated by shooting a laser at droplets of tin – and for this the wafer on which the light falls had to be modified, as did the so-called mask, which determines the line pattern on the chip.
Light source
With high-NA, euv remains the light source. ASML changed the opening angle of the mirrors that catch the light, the “numerical aperture” (NA). With increasing the opening angle-from 0.33 to 0.55-the image becomes sharper, and the exposed lines on the chip a stroke smaller (3 nanometers). With a larger angle of incidence, the image becomes more diffuse, which requires adjustment of the mirrors. Mirrors are ground smooth to atomic level by German supplier Zeiss. The high-NA machines build on euv, and that makes the transition less significant.
Euv is so strategically important that the U.S. government believes these machines should not end up in Chinese hands. But while the geopolitical jousting surrounding these machines is still in full swing, ASML itself is almost ready to launch euv’s successor. The first so-called high-NA machines are expected to be delivered in 2022.