In order to keep the same overlay while increasing throughput it is necessary to improve the “accuracy” of the system. It is possible to increase throughput at the sacrifice of overlay, but that is rarely desirable.
For example, the 2050i has improved wafer deformation control, measurement and prediction. The rapid acceleration during step and scan deforms the wafer on the nanoscale as does the illumination. All of this has impact on overlay. The system needs to be able to extremely accurately locate the wafer which is the job of the alignment subsystem. This it needs to be able to do in presence of a wide range of structures on the wafer and in less time if it is to meet increased throughput.
I didn’t find any mention of the interferometers in the critical improvements introduced to NXT:2050i. Maybe they were already good enough?
Source:
Probably already good enough. I think Havok was saying that everything basically needs to get more accurate as you move up. The current iteration of DUVi is good enough for 14nm process with double exposure, but I'm sure more improvement is needed for N+1 or 7nm process.
How accurate are the below statements:
I literally just posted on this 2 days ago. Xuzhou B&C has 18% global market share on Photoresist Monomers and supplies 5 major Photoresist producers in Japan & Korea.
The big issue right now is capacity and also validating.
Nata recently just came out with a very embarrassing Q&A where they said they have 25t Arf plant ready but still need to be validated and that it takes 18 months to validate. I guess we can conclude they are going to not be all that competitive.
They have Xuzhou B&C, Shanghai Sinyang, RA Chem & Jinrui all at various stages of validating and getting orders from customers on Arf Photoresist. sub 14nm photoresist by 2024 should be no problem. Production ramp up is an issue they will need to figure.
If confirmed this is a bad news. The clear target here is ASML....and SMIC.
ASML is going to ban the most advanced DUV immersion machines at the same node level of the banned US equipment, i.e for nodes below 20/16nm.
This is not a random thought, but is the official position of ASML CEO and, we can assume, of the Dutch government during the negotiations with US.
So to workaround this, US will move up the technological threshold of banned US equipment to include the whole DUV immersion range, i.e. up to 28nm included....and of course, the day after they put into effect this new rule, they will knock at the Dutch government's door.
For US toolmakers is not a big loss, because they are out anyhow or will be soon. Moreover the localization efforts of Chinese firms have already almost closed the gap at 28nm for a large part of US equipment.
For ASML instead this would be a heavy blow. The biggest impact I see is on the big order of ASML machines that SMIC (supposedly) made in November last year with delivery in 2024. IMO US is aiming at stopping that.
For China it means to wait until the end of 2024 for 28nm in volume production and more or less another 1/2 years for 14nm/16nm.
As usual with any Bloomberg article, it's not worth commenting on until we see what things look like. So far the official position of ASML is that they do not expect sanctions to affect their 2023 sales. And that they expect anything older than 2000i to be allowed, but we will have to see. I frankly don't know where you got all this other stuff from.
As someone who has been on this thread for a long time, you should know that Bloomberg and SCMP articles are shit.
btw, the current goal for SMIC is to have full 14nm line by end of 2024. I showed you earlier that SN2 plant is going to basically be complete by July 1st, 2024, The initial lines will be using stocked up ASML machines, but they will also likely be validating full domestic process after that.
