The Extreme Engineering of ASML’s EUV Light Source

Two must watch videos about the whole process: ▶ this video link (Typed on a device made by this process, which I still don’t quite believe.)

Anyone interested in the details should watch this video: ▶ this video (has the same graphics) without any hyperbole the 2-shot laser thing necessary to emit EUV is just mind bending.

EUV lithography is interesting. You drop a microscopic droplet of tin. You then aim and shoot it not once, but twice with a laser so it produces the correct wavelength. Then you do this with 100% reliability thousands of times per second all day, every day for years. The problem doing this with fusion seems to be money. Their "big" grant of 600M wouldn't even buy a handful of those machines and wouldn't come close to the many billions it has cost in the past 30+ years of research to reach the point where they are finally viable (it had been "a few months away" ever since the early 2000s). This video from Asianometry on EUV light sources is well worth the watch. It's pretty incredible. ▶ this video

Because the EUV machines that ASML build are the most complex machines ever built by humans and getting all the bits to work properly takes decades of R+D e.g. watch this about the light source, its completely bonkers ▶ this video

There's a lot of expertise with lithography around the world too (companies like Canon build lithography machines), but we're not talking the usual levels of it. The EUV lasers ASML/TRUMPF builds don't even work the same way other "conventional" lasers would[1]. You physically can't get there by incrementally improving some existing process. Now I don't know how ZEISS makes mirrors that blown up to the size of a country would have imperfections smaller than a human hair, but I'm pretty sure it's no small feat either. These companies invested decades and untold sums into this when few other companies even had incentive to attempt it themselves. Sure, other companies could eventually replace them, but you're not closing a 2-decade technology gap in an afternoon. [1] It's a bit insane, really. Vaporizing falling droplets of tin with two laser pulses 100,000 times a second to get just the right wavelength? Here's a good video: ▶ this video

Twice. They have to hit the molten droplet twice . Once "gently" to deform it briefly into a concave shape, and the second, harder pulse to actually activate the droplet to emit extreme ultraviolet light Asianometry on EUV. Skip to 10m50s. ▶ this video

The article doesn't go into much detail on this, but the UV source using the hydrogen here is incredibly cool. To get the 13.5nm light they need, they use a 20kW CO2 laser to explode tin droplets into plasma that emits the correct wavelength. 50,000 droplets per second. And they use a smaller laser to first shape the droplet into a little dish shape that explodes better. Shown better in a video - ▶ this video

The etching process that uses a laser to blast a moving molten tin sphere to shape it so the next laser blast that vaporizes it produces parallel EUV light is pretty insane, too. See ▶ this video

The machines are made by other companies. Lithography is the most expensive now and its made by ASML in Netherlands is the only solution for EUV lithography. But there are many steps in manufacturing and a machine for each. The major equipment manufactures are spread across US, Europe and Japan. In the US the three big equipment manufacturers are Applied Materials and Lam Research and KLA. The costs are probably driven by extreme engineering requirements (temperature, pressure, corrosive chemicals, low contamination) and R&D costs to meet these requirements. The production volumes are not high either. Its not like they are building millions of these machines. Asianometry on YouTube is a good source for this kind of topic. ▶ this video

Cant answer the question and my knowledge is only from 'one interested' but from how long (~20 years) it took to build the current EUV source and how complicated the alternatives look this is for sure no easy feat. Can recommend [1] as the title say about the light source. Very interesting even for a non professional (and [2] as on high level overview of the machine and [3] as longer documentation inside ASML). [1] ▶ this video "The Extreme Engineering of ASML’s EUV Light Source" [2] link "The Extreme Physics Pushing Moore’s Law to the Next Level" [3] link "ASML's Secret: An exclusive view from inside the global semiconductor giant"

To add to this, here is a great video on some of the technical/physical challenges ASML had to solve for their EUV source: ▶ this video

ASML is so interesting. Its like sci-fi that one firm in the Netherlands knows how to make the most complicated machine ever made, and no one else can do it. And it is arguably the most complicated machine ever made. 50,000 times a second, the EUV lithography machine hits a 25 micron drop of molten tin that is moving at 70 meters per second with two co-ordinated lasers, the first hit to change the shape of the drop of tin in exactly the right way, the second hit to vaporise it, creating Extreme Ultraviolet Light at the right wavelength to etch chip designs onto silicon at "5nm process" sizes. Some labs can cobble together something similar as a proof of concept, but not well enough to make it feasible for mass production of chips. Video about the light souce - ▶ this video No one else in the world is able to make these machines. If you buy one it costs $150m and gets shipped to you in forty containers on specially adapted planes. Very few firms have the resources/know how to even run the machines - which is what makes TSMC so important.