Comment by dreamcompiler | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dreamcompiler | Hacker News Reader

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Intel (like every other chipmaker) has been chasing EUV for decades, but every time they thought they finally nailed it they turned out to be wrong.

The key that ultimately made it possible was the light source, and ASML is the only company that sells these light sources. ASML didn't invent the light source entirely on its own; there were a lot of ideas for light sources floating around and the only one that turned out to work was laser-induced plasma from tin microdroplets, which sounds completely crazy but it works [0]. ASML perfected that process (with -- to be fair -- some investment from Intel).

[0] https://www.asml.com/en/technology/lithography-principles/li...

Intel did fight EUV with a technology called SAQP which ultimately turned out not to work as well as EUV, but they were researching EUV at the same time. Here are some more historical articles about Intel's work on EUV in the past. Note the dates.

https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-achieves-majo...

https://semiengineering.com/why-euv-is-so-difficult/

https://www.eetimes.com/intel-developing-euv-pellicle/

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/276376-intel-reportedl...

Do you have any insight on what organizational failures led to them failing to find the right EUV solution?

Was it just a matter of luck that ASML nailed the right one or was it the nature of exploring some riskier alternative (as you said "which sounds completely crazy but it works")?

I know nothing about Intel's internal organization.

There were several different light source ideas tried. Some at US national laboratories. Tin plasma was known to work but it left so much debris that it gummed up the optics so it was forgotten for a while. The key turned out to be tin microdroplets.

https://www.optica-opn.org/home/articles/volume_29/march_201...

ASML and Intel are two completely different companies. ASML makes lithography machines which is one of the many steps in producing a chip. ASML machines are used by all chip manufacturers. The challenge for chip manufacturers like Intel, but also tsmc, Samsung among others, is to optimize the entire production process. And that has been / is not easy with a lithography step (EUV) which is so drastically different then what the industry has been using before. One of the challenging choices for chip manufacturers was to drastically change the process and implement EUV or to go self-aligned quadratic patterning. The latter, if you take a simplistic view, can be seen as an evolution on existing processes. We know see that those companies who went aggressively into EUV are having an edge on their competitors.

When they say “microdroplets” (I may be out of date here) they mean firing lasers at falling drops of molten tin and then capturing the energy that the tin gives off.

Like anything, some of their PHDs were like “no that’s probably not going to work because xyz” and they trusted said PHDs.

It’s just science. It’s hard to predict.

I think it's more that they didn't try ('till now) 'cause they thought ASML's machines just weren't ready for prime time. TSMC bought ASML's bleeding edge EUV machines thinking they could make it work eventually, and they did. Intel may catch up very quickly now.

I thought that ASML got its EUV light source, basically, by buying Cymer in San Diego. Read some of [0], and then searched it, but didn't find a single instance of 'Cymer.'

Thank you.

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