Talk:Extreme ultraviolet lithography

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Sweet, this article is currently ranked 5th over at google. Good job, everyone.the1physicist 02:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

That's good to hear. The nice thing about Wikipedia is, being somewhat encyclopedic, it is a better information source than other internet sites, e.g. news sites, provided users treat it and use it correctly. Guiding light 08:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the first paragraph heading should be changed to "Background", "Wavelength Choice", "Limitations of Photolithography" or something similar. Any objections/suggestions?the1physicist 19:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a "Background of EUV Development" or something like that?Guiding light 15:22, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, I'll make the change. Also, the article seems a tad bit technical. I think the average person would have trouble understanding the article in its current form. Should we put a {{technical}} tag in the article?the1physicist 19:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Generally, EUVL is a highly complex topic with a lot of technical details. If there is a specific point that needs more clarification, it should be good enough just to leave a note here. We can go over the sections in this forum. Thanks. Guiding light 01:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I added a section on mask costs, and put two recent contributions which seemed extremely relevant under that heading. Hope it makes the flow better. Guiding light 06:12, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: the section on throughput, it's considered pretty unlikely that either nanoimprint or maskless lithography will be able to achieve even EUV-level throughput. Nanoimprint seems to mostly appeal to people working in materials other than silicon, and with feature sizes significantly larger than 32 nm. Maskless seems best-suited for prototyping and other short-run applications, where the savings in mask cost outweighs the throughput hit. But all of this is getting pretty deep into industry specialist territory, so I'm not sure whether it belongs in a generalist discussion like this. Opinions? KDerbyshire 18:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Those are good points to bring up. The current applications for nanoimprint and maskless are exactly as you state. The throughput equation gets pretty complicated below 40 nm. Photoresist chemical amplification is expected to become the resolution-limiter at this scale. By taking it out, however, throughput suffers dramatically. Other techniques like nanoimprint or maskless atomic deposition will not be limited in this way, although they can be limited by other issues.Guiding light 00:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Why wasn't EUV light source and optics development started much earlier? That is largely to blame for its repeated delay!218.168.164.152 12:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

EUV development has been going on for twenty years. In that time, the industry has discovered that (a) focusing x-rays is really hard and (b) predicting the timing of research advances is even harder.

Guiding Light: Hmmm... Good points. I'm willing to draft a paragraph or two for the rest of you to beat on, but I have some pressing deadlines to deal with first. KDerbyshire 14:39, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the history of EUV development, the multilayer and plasma discharge emission technology had been established for soft X-rays (i.e., EUV) and hard X-rays before 1990, but EUV LLC didn't start until 1997. I actually think LLC didn't start years earlier because of the usual two reasons: 'no immediate need' and 'too hard to do'. History is repeating itself..now is the time to consider how to pattern 1 nm objects. Guiding light 22:25, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The topic of EUV is usually dominated by supporters. Kudos to this article for approaching NPOV. Just to give you guys the big picture, EUV has a shot noise problem. There are few photons used per square nanometer, and since these arrive randomly at the wafer, it makes for noisier printing (Poisson noise). EUV also has a throughput-downtime tradeoff. The more powerful source wears out the mirrors sooner, so they need to be replaced more often. So the cost-effectiveness is still not there.61.61.254.9 00:19, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Double patterning throughput is not straightforward cutting in half. The rate of final product wafers produced is hardly influenced by an extra exposure step. But restricting the second exposure to the same lithography tool (for example, for better alignment) is a strong manufacturing constraint.Guiding light 14:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article update

This article will be updated, mostly to make it more concise while keeping the main points to date.Guiding light 16:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)