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Canon aims to ship low-cost 'stamp' machine this year to disrupt chipmaking

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Re: Canon aims to ship low-cost 'stamp' machine this year to disrupt chipmaking

#11

Post by pests »

juliangoldsmith wrote: post #9
comex wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you be more specific about what the difference is?

With photolithography, what most chips are made with, the resist is developed by exposing it to UV light. A mask is used so that the desired parts of the resist are left behind, and the rest is washed away. Contact photolithography places the mask directly against the silicon wafer because it helps the optics during exposure, but the mask doesn't directly remove the resist. In nanoimprint lithograhy, a stamp is press…

How does the stamp not get damaged or degrade over time? Or is this part a consumable / easily replaced?

Re: Canon aims to ship low-cost 'stamp' machine this year to disrupt chipmaking

#12

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

Someone wrote: post #3

FTA: “Canon’s nanoimprint lithography — a technology under development for more than 15 years but which the company says is only now commercially viable — stamps chip designs on to silicon wafers rather than etching them using light.” It seems everything old is new again. https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/leaving-arizona : “there was a reason the 6800 was expensive. It was made using ‘contact lithography’, where t…

Can you give any sense of numbers because my intuition is telling me the process should be a win.

If it takes N days of very expensive process to make a mask and the mask can be used M times with cheaper process, what are the thresholds where it is not cost effective?

Re: Canon aims to ship low-cost 'stamp' machine this year to disrupt chipmaking

#13

Post by treffer »

ksec wrote: post #4

For those who are not aware, and I think it is important to Note, Canon is not a new entry to the industry. They were actually competing with ASML before they gave up in the early 10s. They are aiming at 5nm in 2025 and extend it to 2nm in 2027+. I guess in real world terms you can add at least 1 year to it even in the most optimistic scenario. I dont expect many logic chips will be using it, given the sunk cost invo…

Most SOCs are trimmed for cost, which means cheap manufacturing. Especially the system on a chip design for single board computers.

Even RPI5s with the Broadcom BCM2712 which is super high volume is 16nm. If they manage to get 5nm in 2026 at low cost than that's the path to take the SOC crown.

This could even lead to RISC-V SOCs/SBCs at RPI power and price tag (yeah, still dreaming).

Re: Canon aims to ship low-cost 'stamp' machine this year to disrupt chipmaking

#16

Post by atdrummond »

Mistletoe wrote: post #15

Canon stock is basically unchanged and is underperforming the SP500 slightly on the 1Y, is the market wrong or is this not going to do anything? One would think disrupting chipmaking would be more reflected in the stock price.

We’ve known they have had this in the pipeline for years. It is priced in until we get new info.

Re: Canon aims to ship low-cost 'stamp' machine this year to disrupt chipmaking

#18

Post by mjevans »

pests wrote: post #11
juliangoldsmith wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With photolithography, what most chips are made with, the resist is developed by exposing it to UV light. A mask is used so that the desired parts of the resist are left behind, and the rest is washed away. Contact photolithography places the mask directly against the silicon wafer because it helps the optics during exposure, but the mask doesn't directly remove the resist. In nanoimprint lithograhy, a stamp is press…

How does the stamp not get damaged or degrade over time? Or is this part a consumable / easily replaced?

It might help you to look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimeograph and possibly other copying techniques. More approachable examples include CD / DVD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc_manufacturing or earlier vinyl record production methods.

For the case of chip lithography they'd probably make source masks, copy the first generation a time or two, and use those secondary source masks to produce consumable 'stamps' for production.

Hopefully the stamps maintain sufficient quality across at least a couple batches (50-100+?) of wafers.

Re: Canon aims to ship low-cost 'stamp' machine this year to disrupt chipmaking

#20

Post by rcxdude »

Someone wrote: post #3

FTA: “Canon’s nanoimprint lithography — a technology under development for more than 15 years but which the company says is only now commercially viable — stamps chip designs on to silicon wafers rather than etching them using light.” It seems everything old is new again. https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/leaving-arizona : “there was a reason the 6800 was expensive. It was made using ‘contact lithography’, where t…

Well, the costs of photolithography have skyrocketed recently, so that's a big part of it. I suspect that plus cost reductions for this tech is why it can be viable despite the masks needing to be remade periodically.
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