Re: euv2
Originally posted by afifield107
It is ture that on ASML's website you can read that they just sold a EUV beta tool to Intel 2 days ago. I don't want to get into a pissing contest, but you will not see very many ASML tools in a Intel (pentium producing) fab. Other companies like Motorolla have tried ASML and sent them back due to them not working correctly. ASML has been loosing ground in the Litho industry latley and is trying to make up for it. You can also read about that on their website. It would be nice to see something come out regardless of manufacturer that would bring about better chips, but this is a new technology that every litho company is striving to accomplish and it will be some time before it is seen by the public. Intel is definetly the one company with the resources to pull it off first. I have seen enough to know that.
peace out
ok,
hey, I am not in a pissing contest either, but I feel the need to add some remarks.
ASML has been losing some ground, just like almost every other litho manufacturer, remember the downturn last year? This industry is hit very hard by it.
Secondly, the japanese competition may be involved in their EUV project, but they ramped-up EUV development late last year, ASML is already 2 years ahead. To have a prototype of some kind running is one thing (alpha testing), to get the stuff working in a production enviroment is a complete other ballgame..
for a fab its healthy to have more suppliers of litho tools in house, if one goes out or has big problems you can always use the systems from the other supplier.
ASML systems are considered to be high-end systems, in a mixed enviroment they are frequently used to 'build' the critical layers on a wafer, the non-critical layers are useally build on lower-end systems. Low-end, mind you, is an understatement, these systems are still pretty sophisticated too.
High end systems are also used as development tools within a fab, but as always it is up to the owner of the fab how they emploi these systems in their fab.
Former SVG was the main litho tool supplier for Intel, the installed base at Intel consist afaik out of SVG and Nikon systems, now asml has taken over SVG, and in a way intel is a customer of asml.
There are some tough engineering challenges involved in designing and producing EUV systems. Certain areas of the system need to be in almost complete vacuum, if any pollution stays behind it could have a devestating effect on the system, and could cause severe downtime.
Normal air (lets say, completely dust free) is still considered as pollution....
It poses an idea of the demands on controlling the enviroment and the interfacing/exchanging with the outside world.
For example, even the building materials used in the fab for housing EUV systems have tight specifications for gas absorption and outgassing (vapourize) of the material.
The estimated cost of a single EUV system is around 40 million US$
