Comments by "Grak70" (@Grak70) on "The End of American Lithography" video.

  1. In addition to the patent issues already mentioned, at least one of the two Japanese makers (I can’t remember which) bet the farm on DPP source tech rather than LPP. That was the wrong choice and they paid the price.
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  2.  @souvikrc4499  actually no. The power to control who ASML sells to through the EUV license is proving, at least so far, to benefit US national security interests, which was the plan all along. There wasn’t and still isn’t any company in the US with anything like the skills or capital to build out EUV infrastructure and produce tools.
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  3. You need bigger problems.
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  4. Nano imprint will never replace EUV. It’s too slow, too defect prone, and they’ll never solve the overlay issue. All the single digit overlay data you see in Canon’s propaganda material is massaged to hell.
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  5. At the time, it was seen as the only way ASML was going to force Intel’s hand to buy from them. I think if Intel had understood how unstable and hollowed out SVG was, they would have switched earlier.
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  6. It’s a PAS5500 body DUV scanner. The Illuminator optics train in the back is behind the projection optics, in the direction of the excimer laser unit peeking out behind it.
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  7. I had always thought one of the main reasons ASML bought SVG is because SVG held the patents for catadioptric lens design. Of course nothing came of that, but it wouldn’t be the first time a M&A happened for IP that never got used.
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  8.  @p-jbroodbakker1303  yup. That 157 tool was complete insanity. And a few months after it was completed they realized only the final few elements needed to be pure CaF2 and the rest of the optics train could be fluorine-doped fused silica. A real head slapper.
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  9. Not to mention you cannot make field term corrections if previous layers were exposed by stepper/scanner.
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  10.  @Gameboygenius  correct. 5500 refers to the body type. /xxxx is the model #. So for example a /100 is an i-line stepper with fixed pupil illumination and lower lamp power. A /275 is the same but with variable illuminator/pupil, better lens, and higher lamp power. Etc. A 5500/700 would be a single wafer stage body (limited to 200mm wafers max) containing a mid-range KrF exposure system.
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  11.  @JigilJigil  I’ve long suspected this was payback for Japan keeping the US out of Selete and other Japanese nationally funded semiconductor programs, not to mention sour memories of the 1980s. “Two can play at the protectionist game.” And two did.
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  12. Fun fact: Perkin Elmer was also the company that fucked up the Hubble primary mirror. I remember a coworker of mine recalling he would bring it up constantly to his Perkin-Elmer FSE at Motorola just to get a rise out of the guy. It’s not often the US government has to launch a space shuttle just to fix someone’s incompetence. 😆
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  13. Their AOI tools are pretty good, especially if you can’t or don’t need to pay KLA prices.
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  14. BTW my memories of working on a pair of Micrascan III+ tools at my first job are a constant source of long-term trauma. Everyone loved the reticle cassette design y’all came up with where if you picked it up wrong the mask would fall out. 😆
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  15.  @_Chad_ThunderCock  no, it won’t. It’s too slow. I worked for the research group that invented step and flash 20 years ago. It has the same problems it did back then despite all the advancement. In the meantime, EUV went from impossible to production. Most hurdles can be overcome, but if your final solution isn’t cost effective, it’s dead. NIL may be useful for some applications, but you will never see one in production for advanced node logic or memory. I’d bet my house on it.
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  16.  @_Chad_ThunderCock  companies spend tons of money on strategic failures all the time. Look how much Meta has wasted on its moronic business VR platform. I have worked in this industry for 25 years. NIL has applications, but as far as challenging ASML for mass production of semiconductors, it’s a turd that simply will not polish.
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  17.  @calvinhobbes1617  I work with these tools daily. No ASML tool in existence uses both refractive and reflective optics in the actinic path.
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  18.  @calvinhobbes1617  well your information is about 20 years out of date then.
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