Intel Foundry And ASML Pass 1 Million Wafers On High-NA EUV Lithography
At this week's SPIE Photomask Technology + EUV Lithography conference in Monterey, Intel Foundry and ASML presented a status update regarding the commercialization and high-volume manufacturing (HVM) deployment of High Numerical Aperture (High-NA) Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. The announcement centers on the news that Intel Foundry and ASML have collectively processed over one million 300-mm wafers on the High-NA platform across tool installation, R&D calibration, PDK development, and early HVM production. Intel also confirmed that High-NA EUV (utilizing ASML's TWINSCAN EXE architecture) is currently deployed on select critical layers for the Core Ultra Series 3 processors, better known as Panther Lake, which are built on the Intel 18A process node.
Under standard Low-NA EUV (NA = 0.33), practical single-exposure resolution bottoms out at roughly 26nm (or 13nm half-pitch). Pushing logic density below 2nm-class nodes on 0.33 NA forces foundries into complex multi-patterningschemes, which drastically increase mask counts, defect...
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