EUV Lithography. But With a Free Electron Laser

Long time no see.

I have been thinking about this recently. The idea of what goes next after EUV. The current presumption in the wider media is that EUV works and is worth the investment. The former is true in a literal sense. I am not so sure about the latter.

I want to do another video about this down the line. But I am feeling increasingly uneasy about the state of EUV lithography right now. And I am feeling especially … especially nervous about High-NA EUV. The new senior leadership of ASML have a rough task ahead of them.

Also, one of the feedbacks that I got about this video from an industry professional was that “this was trash”. So take that as you may.

Recently, I have been thinking about TSMC's N3 process. The one popularly called "3-nanometers", whatever that means.

There is no doubt about it. TSMC's N3 process family is going through some issues. Currently there are two versions of N3.

The first one is N3B. The B stands for "based". Which according to TikTok means it has a lot of swagger or something.

This is the one that is in high volume production right now. My guess is that it is producing an Apple chip though as of this writing, nothing has yet come out using it since the commencement ceremony at the end of 2022.

Then we have this second process called N3E. It is entirely different and is known as the "real" N3. This one is heading into high volume production later in 2023.

One of the significant differences between N3B and N3E is the number of layers done by EUV.

David Schor of WikiChip Fuse estimated that N3B has 80% more EUV layers than the N5/N4 process nodes. N3E apparently scaled that back, going from 25 EUV exposures to 19.

It is a bit strange, right? TSMC has more EUV machines than any other fab in the world, but their newest and biggest N3 process is nevertheless pulling back on EUV. Why?

Nobody knows but TSMC and ASML. But I have a theory. EUV was supposed to take us to the Promised Land. It hasn't yet because the amazing, double-tin-shot-with-a-laser EUV light source everyone loves to talk about is not powerful enough.

And that is why scientists are tinkering with something else. And that something might cost half a billion dollars. In ...