Germany Carl Zeiss, heart of Dutch ASML Lithography Equipment.

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tidalwave

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ZeEa5KPul said:
Nikkei reported that the licence to export EUV machines under the Wassennaar agreement had expired and the US was pressuring ASML to withhold the machines
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However, ASML denies that it's under US pressure
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That's just replacing one set of problems with another. How soon can China manufacture these components itself?
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Oh no, there's no shortcut here.
It has to start from ground and up like it's carrier program started from an outdated Liaoning carrier.

Fortunately good ole optical lithography can extended to 10nm, or even 7nm although not as cost effective.

There are alot of challenge for EUV high volume manufacturing. TSMC and Samsung do not have high volume products made with EUV yet. It would be great they both got stuck at present predicament, LOL

Both Samsung and TSMC made alot BS announcement with regard to EUV 5nm, 3nm roadmap, I don't think so, it won't be that smooth.
The mask for EUV is 10x times harder and expensive than optical lithography mask with only with chrome on glass whereas EUV mask has 10 layers of alternative Si and Mo and absorber in between and not a single contaminant particle allowed

Even at 5nm and 3nm the chip will made with both optical and EUV lithography equipments. Optical litho will made majority of layers and EUV for critical layers like for vias
 
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antiterror13

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tidalwave said:
I heard ASML is delaying delivery of EUV lithography machines to SMIC, each of this machine cost $100miilion.

It's US putting pressure on Dutch government under Wassener agree ment to restrict the state of the art EUV machine to China.

However, currently TSMC 7nm process still using the optical lithography, not the EUV machine. It won't use EUV till 5nm. It gets away with multipattern techniques

ASML has a predication, it's main EUV light source is based US Cymer, so it's using US technology.

I said China shouls build its EUV machine by first using Japanese and Germany parts completely bypass US technology.

Use Germany Zeiss lens like ASML and replace US Cymer with Japan Gigaphoton laser produced plasma light source and Japanese Stepper unit. It's doable. This way bypass ASML all together.

Eventually develops domestic parts to replace Germany optics and Japanese light source and stepper later.

If China can make EUV machine on its own , then that represent the final frontier of technology barrier West has over China.I

I have been study EUV lithography for awhile on my own pretty much understand most internally and I can write a book on that, and have someone translate that into Chinese for education. I think fundamental science and physics is way more important than AI, big data, internet tech and blockchain... In this respect, me and Japanese are in sync. Japanese respect more fundamental science than h higher up application technology that i agree. The atomic bombs dropped on them left them quite a impresion, they vowed to become the master of fundamental science. Rectify their previous shortcomings, and the what ifs if they develop the atomic bomb first . What if they master that science first. ever since they try to master all the fundamental science with a vengeance
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well, the US can easily "demand" the Japanese and German easily, no ?
 
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antiterror13

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Xsizor said:
I thought ASML representatives had clarified rather clearly that they look forward to the business in China? And remember that it was during the time when China and US trade war had reached a critical point ( much worse than the seemingly winding down atmosphere these days). Do you have some good sources on the news - that the US is putting pressure on ASML ? I thought that ASML EUVs had become "old enough" to be not under Wessenar?
Unless the Chinese EUV effort has picked up steam ... and that in turn got picked up by Industry Information sources ( Spies ? ). This is quite the about turn for ASML. Why did it display the confidence before when it knew it had U.S components ? Are you sure that ASML doesn't have backup/ alternate suppliers of the U.S sourced components ?
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more and more companies would try harder to not using US technologies .... remember, "need" is the mother of invention
 
localizer

localizer

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1. TSMC is already using EUV for 7nm in both Huawei and Samsung SOCs
2. The light source is not as easy as swapping a laser, ASML had troubles with 13.5nm light output power and is still trying to improve it. I believe they said they needed to hit a tin droplet with 2 pulses. So who knows what happens if you switch the laser.


It uses all reflective optics and the surfaces tend to degrade.

EUV seems very expensive to do overall. A lot of clients are sticking to traditional 10 or 14nm for the foreseeable future.


There are Chinese scientists capable of building these machines. We just need to get them back to China.
 
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tidalwave

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TSMC uses EUV for its second generation 7nm+ and only makes 4 layers and rest of layers still use optical litho.
It's first generation 7nm still uses traditional optical litho

And EUV 's light generation unit which includes laser all comes with one unit cannot swap parts
 
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tidalwave

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The first step is build a powerful CO2 laser system capable delivering 20KW. The physical unit is huge.
And able to control the pulse duration of the laser in the nanosecond and picosecond range. This is already quite challen
 
Xizor

Xizor

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Can we write letters to the office of Xi-Jingping ? Because I don't think there is any other way to see some action regarding the Chinese lithography equipment manufacture/innovation. You have really good points @tidalwave but I don't think PRC is "aware" of all this. Better yet- can you arrange for some news on the lithography innovation within china ( if you are within China ) ? I don't think there is much use looking at how far back China is. Maybe we should follow the slow progress of China.
 
localizer

localizer

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Xsizor said:
Can we write letters to the office of Xi-Jingping ? Because I don't think there is any other way to see some action regarding the Chinese lithography equipment manufacture/innovation. You have really good points @tidalwave but I don't think PRC is "aware" of all this. Better yet- can you arrange for some news on the lithography innovation within china ( if you are within China ) ? I don't think there is much use looking at how far back China is. Maybe we should follow the slow progress of China.
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that’s why they’re trying to get their hands on the machine. They want to study it.

I don’t think they’re that clueless based on what I see in Chinese academia
 
Xizor

Xizor

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localizer said:
that’s why they’re trying to get their hands on the machine. They want to study it.

I don’t think they’re that clueless based on what I see in Chinese academia
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You can't study the machines. Every lithography equipment is linked up to an encrypted channel across the internet to ensure that the critical systems are in operation and to ensure that there isn't a compromise within. It is almost like the Flight Management System aboard a modern Civilian Jetliner. And I don't think ASML would be happy to see that their machine might have been compromised. ASML needs to maintain the machine too.
I think SMIC buying ASML has nothing to do with supplying Chinese researchers with lithography manufacturing knowledge but rather for its own push for achieving lower nm fab capacilty to keep up with other foundries outside China. China needs to hack into suppliers of ASML to get a better picture. Ultimately, it involves closely guarded fundamental physics research and fabrication.
 
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tidalwave

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Xsizor said:
Can we write letters to the office of Xi-Jingping ? Because I don't think there is any other way to see some action regarding the Chinese lithography equipment manufacture/innovation. You have really good points @tidalwave but I don't think PRC is "aware" of all this. Better yet- can you arrange for some news on the lithography innovation within china ( if you are within China ) ? I don't think there is much use looking at how far back China is. Maybe we should follow the slow progress of China.
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A few years I wrote a book on IoT in English and partnered up with an University in China and have their instructors translated that into Chinese. So the book is dual English/Chinese reference and it got published by a Beijing publish house and used as reference material for students. After that alot of books come out by others similar to mine in China. You set an example and others will follow.

Right now, I am trying gather EUV materials and do a presentation to another University and see they have interest in translate into Chinese and used as reference materials for students.
Hopefully I work with them to get it published also. The goal is start a teaching course on that. Overwhelming most Chinese Universities currently concentrate on IC design. Not much lithography equipment and manufacturing tech. Hopefully I can start a new trend across the country like before.
 
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