Is the idea that this will scale? You can already build down to the atomic level with scanning tunneling microscopy (thanks IBM).
Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
11–20 of 75 posts
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#12So they basically want to use synchrotron?
Hooked up to a free electron laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-electron_laser or some similar kind of device that turns the momentum of electrons into light. I'm a little surprised that they didn't try something like a FEL first instead of that terribly problematic device that uses highly inefficient lasers to blow up tin droplets, itself a high-loss process that produces contamination and resulted in years of…
They tried both in the initial design phase, there's upsides and downsides, but ultimately thought that the tin droplet laser was more liekly to actually get done more or less on the time schedule requested, and so that's where the bulk of the capital went.
Interestingly China has been continuing working on the synchotron based EUV litho idea (in addition to work to create domestically built tin laser EUV lithos machines).
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#13Funny, we asked why they didn’t use a cyclotron during an ASML visit
Things would get a bit radioactive at those energies, though.
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#14I was hoping to see table top particle accelerators like those at UCLA were progressing into something usable for lithography. Which makes me wonder, why not use electrons instead of light?
Ebeam is a pencil, photolithography is a printing press.
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#15So they basically want to use synchrotron?
Hooked up to a free electron laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-electron_laser or some similar kind of device that turns the momentum of electrons into light. I'm a little surprised that they didn't try something like a FEL first instead of that terribly problematic device that uses highly inefficient lasers to blow up tin droplets, itself a high-loss process that produces contamination and resulted in years of…
Love me some FELs. Pretty sure they did try this, but determined it to be too large and costly for the technology of the time.
https://www.asianometry.com/p/euv-lithography-but-with-a-fre...
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#16Is the idea that this will scale? You can already build down to the atomic level with scanning tunneling microscopy (thanks IBM).
Yes, electron-beam lithography is fantastic but also fantastically slow. Sorta like building a Lego model brick by brick vs layer by layer. It's still used for reticle fabrication and repair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-beam_lithography
Edit: Confused SEMs and STMs, but the principle described above applies to both.
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#17So they basically want to use synchrotron?
My bet is on plasma Wakefield accelerators to feed the FEL. But yeah a synchrotron might do as an intermediate step. Free Electron Lasers can be tuned to different wavelengths all the way to x-rays.
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my non expert understanding, we already do kinda. The masks used for photolithography are made using an electron beam, allowing for a much greater resolution than what the underlying photolithography allows. But this is far too slow for large scale production. Scanning an electron beam, repeatedly over an entire waffer would take forever. So instead we do it once, to make the mask, and that mask is then used ove…
Adding to this, from what I’ve read electron beam is too slow for the required throughput. The ASML EUV machine can etch something like 170 wafers per hour. Using an electron beam would be far too slow for 2-3 wafers per minute.
It would be interesting to see if this tech was viable for dev boards. i.e. when you want to design a new 2nm chip, what if you were using electron beam chips to test out designs?
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#19Free Electron Lasers have potential to generate more tunable radiation with higher luminosity. Despite this they aren't a drop in replacement for the current EUV light sources. A free electron laser is 200 meters long, so a single laser would feed multiple EUV machines for it to be economical. This technology is very promising but it has been under development for a while. Does anyone know what the current difficulties are?
Re: Want even tinier chips? Use a particle accelerator
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hooked up to a free electron laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-electron_laser or some similar kind of device that turns the momentum of electrons into light. I'm a little surprised that they didn't try something like a FEL first instead of that terribly problematic device that uses highly inefficient lasers to blow up tin droplets, itself a high-loss process that produces contamination and resulted in years of…
They tried both in the initial design phase, there's upsides and downsides, but ultimately thought that the tin droplet laser was more liekly to actually get done more or less on the time schedule requested, and so that's where the bulk of the capital went. Interestingly China has been continuing working on the synchotron based EUV litho idea (in addition to work to create domestically built tin laser EUV lithos mach…
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