7nm looks good, but resists lag at 5nm
Rick Merritt, EETimes
1/18/2018 01:01 AM EST
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) is set to enable 10nm and 7nm process nodes over the next few years, but significant work is still needed on photoresists to enable 5nm chips, according to an analysis released at the Industry Strategy Symposium here.
At the same time EUV maker ASML announced it shipped 10 EUV systems last year and will ship 20-22 more this year. The systems will have or at least support a 250W laser light source needed to produce 125 wafers/hour.
“The main pieces for EUV at 7nm are in place, and we will see some volume of wafers this year…but photoresist defects are still an order of magnitude too high for 5nm,” said Scotten Jones, president of IC Knowledge.