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Comment by rowanG077 | Hacker News Reader

Why aren't we going electron lithography? As a laymen I think it should easily be able to surpass EUV in terms of resolution. I would imagine there are very good reasons why we aren't seeing it.

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Because it has absolutely awful throughput. Electron-beam lithography has an output measured in days per wafer. Meanwhile, EUV can easily output 150+ wafers per hour.

When the choice was made to go for EUV, E-Beam was actually the most mature technology available for next-gen lithography - but it just wasn't economically viable. The technology has remained in development over the years, but not a lot has changed yet.

If you want to know more about the topic, I can strongly recommend this video from Asianometry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmgkV83OhHA

I mean if the machine is 100x cheaper to buy/maintain it might still be worth it. The price for EUV in TCO per machine is insane.

It would have to be on the order of 1,000-10,000x cheaper for it be worth it. Not to mention that each wafer needs dozens of layers to function. So you will need to wait a very long time for all the layers to be completed.

Not if the throughout is 1000x slower.

If China can't get their hands on EUV, E-Beam seems a logical step for them to develop anyway.

Electrons are electrically charged, so a beam of electrons will interfere with itself. The only way around this is to have a very narrow beam, but that kills throughput.

How about muons then?

How should we produce the muons?

Considering everything is already in scifi zone. "By harnessing orgasms of space cats"

Muonic generator, ofc.

Just for the fun of it, I googled muon production and found this at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland: https://www.psi.ch/en/media/the-sms-muon-source

It does highlight some potential pitfalls. Chiefly the rapid decay of muons and dealing decay particles. Also you need a source of high energy protons.

Proton lithograhy anyone?

Neutron lithography would be better then. You don't have the charge issue.

Muons are also electrically charged - how would that help anything?

Muons are much heavier while having the same charge.

Well put.

You may be able to surpass it in resolution but you can't surpass it in terms of throughput.

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