By Mark LaPedus
It’s the worst-kept secret in the industry. Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography has missed the initial stages of the 10nm logic and 1xnm NAND flash nodes.

Chipmakers hope to insert EUV by the latter stages of 10nm or by 7nm, but vendors are not counting on EUV in the near term and are preparing their back-up plans. Barring a breakthrough with EUV or other technology, IC makers will likely use today’s 193nm immersion with multiple patterning at 14nm, 10nm and perhaps beyond. “10nm will be optical,” said Ajit Manocha, chief executive of GlobalFoundries. “We have evidence that we can do 7nm with immersion.”

GlobalFoundries, for one, is laying the groundwork if EUV is ready by 10nm. “We are keeping our ground rules migrate-able to EUV,” added Subramani Kengeri, vice president of advanced technology architecture at GlobalFoundries.

Chipmakers are keeping their options open for good reason—extending optical comes with a penalty. The shift from single patterning at 28nm to multiple patterning at 20nm is projected to increase lithography costs by up to 56%, according to Barclays Capital. Consequently, the overall cost-per-transistor curve is in danger of slowing or derailing.

Lithographers, who seem to achieve miracles when the chips are down, are determined to stay on Moore’s Law. “The cost of processing might go up with multiple patterning, but cost-per-transistor does not,” said Yan Borodovsky, a senior fellow and director of advanced lithography at Intel.

The ability to stay on the critical cost-per-transistor curve puts enormous pressure on the lithographic supply chain, which includes the EDA houses, materials suppliers, mask shops, and tool vendors. In response, Nikon is quietly shipping a faster scanner for 10nm. Lithographers also may resort to some new patterning tricks. The wild card is directed self-assembly (DSA), an alternative lithography technology that makes use of block copolymers to enable fine pitches.

EUV woes
For years, there have been fears that optical lithography would run out of gas, prompting the need for a new next-generation lithography (NGL). EUV emerged as the leading NGL candidate. The other NGLs, maskless and nanoimprint, are also in the hunt.

EUV, a soft X-ray using 13.5nm technology, is attractive because it keeps the industry on a single-exposure path. But EUV has encountered several delays due to the lack of adequate power sources, defect-free photomasks and photoresists.

The current throughput for ASML’s EUV tools is less than 10 wafers an hour (wph). At one time, ASML hoped to ship an EUV scanner with a 150-watt source by mid-2012. A 150-watt source equates to a more acceptable throughput of 69 wph.

Recently, the 150-watt source was delayed again and pushed out to mid-2014. The source is being developed by Cymer, which itself is being acquired by ASML. Separately, Intel, Samsung and TSMC have recently invested in ASML to help fund ASML’s efforts in EUV and 450mm.

ASML is still targeting EUV for mass production in 2014, but the industry isn’t taking any chances and will extend 193nm immersion—at a price. On average, there are 37 lithography layers processed for 32nm/28nm chips, according to Barclays. Of those, there are 14 critical layers processed using 193nm immersion scanners.

In total, there are 38 lithography exposures at 32nm/28nm, 15 of which are immersion exposures, with only one multiple patterning step in the flow, according to Barclays. In terms of lithography equipment costs at 32nm/28nm, a foundry spends an estimated $17 million per 1,000 wafer starts per month (wspm).

In comparison, there are 40 lithography layers for at 22nm/20nm chips, 19 of which are critical layers. In total, there are 52 lithography exposures at 22nm/20nm, 31 of which are immersion exposures with 11 multiple patterning steps. All told, a foundry is expected to spend $27 million per 1,000 wspm in lithography costs, according to the firm.

Lithography steps and costs will soar at 14nm and beyond. In response, chipmakers already are prepared for the dreaded multiple patterning era. NAND flash vendors, for example, are using a multiple patterning technique called sidewall image transfer (SIT), sometimes called self-aligned double patterning.

In logic, vendors have or will implement one of the various flavors of multiple patterning: SIT, litho-etch-litho-etch (LELE) or self-aligned vias. Intel, for one, is embracing a concept called complementary lithography, which involves an SIT flow. Other logic vendors are following a similar path with various nuances.

Today, Intel is using 193nm immersion with multiple patterning at 22nm, with plans to extend that to 14nm. At 22nm, Intel’s processors are based on finFETs. “For the 22nm node, our fin is finer than what can be done with simple patterning. It’s done with pitch division. We still stay on an historical cost-per-transistor trend,” said Intel’s Borodovsky. “Our 14nm technology is also pitch-divided technology. We project our cost-per-transistor will remain on the trend.”

For 11nm, Intel is looking at quintuple exposure. As part of the process, there are two steps, gratings and line cuts, to pattern designs. Using 193nm immersion, the first exposure is used to make the gratings. The remaining four exposures are used to cut the pitch-divided lines.

To perform the cut step, Intel is evaluating several options: 193nm immersion; DSA, EUV; or direct-write e-beam. So far, there is no clear winner—193nm immersion is challenging, but DSA, EUV and maskless are not ready for mass production.

“I believe we can extend (193nm immersion) for many years,” Borodovsky said. “We also have a dual wave lithography roadmap. It means we will extend existing technology as long as possible. And we will bring in new technology when it is available and affordable.”

Using NGL has some advantages over optical. “If we use EUV, we will use one mask to do the gratings and another mask to break those continuities. If we use direct write, we don’t use any masks,” he said.

Another technology, DSA, potentially could extend 193nm lithography beyond 10nm. As before, the challenges for DSA are defects and the lack of a design infrastructure. The new gap for DSA is non-destructive metrology as a means to inspect the morphologies in the patterns.

DSA materials providers have said DSA would be ready at 10nm, but there are signs the technology may get pushed out. For example, IBM is targeting DSA for 7nm, said Gary Patton, vice president of the Semiconductor Research and Development Center at IBM.

“DSA is making progress,” said Intel’s Borodovsky. “But let’s say we use DSA. If you look at a SEM, you look at the top. Everything may appear perfect. But the cylinders could also change their shapes from top to bottom. You have to have a cross section. So, it’s very difficult to do a cross section of 15nm holes or cylinders. You can do complicated X-ray metrology. For this, you need a synchrotron source, which is not practical.”

Etch is another roadblock. Some of the cylinder morphologies in DSA structures are uniform while others are not. “Some would etch to the bottom. You might also have cylinders that are etched in the wrong place. That’s an edge-placement error,” he added.

The solutions
Until NGL is ready, chipmakers are stuck. “I don’t think the industry has given up on EUV. EUV will be in play, but it will be in limited use,” said Hamid Zarringhalam, executive vice president at Nikon Precision. “But for 10nm, almost all logic vendors are looking at immersion technology. Customers are even looking at extending immersion beyond 10nm.”

To keep up with the increase in multiple patterning steps, ASML and Nikon are shipping faster scanners. Nikon, for one, has begun shipping the NSR-622D, a 193nm immersion scanner for the 10nm node. The tool has a throughput of 200 wph. In addition, Nikon is also developing a separate 193nm immersion tool for the 450mm wafer size.

Besides lithography scanners, there is an urgent need for new and faster e-beams in photomask production. Mask making itself is quickly turning into a fine and precise art. In quadruple patterning, for example, the patterns must be split into four masks.

“One mask has to be perfect in terms of CD uniformity, linearity and defects. The other three masks have to be exactly the same,” said Amitabh Sabharwal, general manager for mask etch products at Applied Materials. “When you start going down to the 16nm node, the CD uniformity targets become very, very tight. We’re talking in the range of 1nm. And on top of that, the defect levels might be very tight. Your systematic uniformity has to be zero. Essentially, everything must be flat.”

Looking into his crystal ball, lithography expert Chris Mack predicts that the industry will embrace new design methodologies such as 1D layouts. “We will see more interaction between lithography and design,” Mack said. “The reality of what we can accomplish lithographically will have more influence on the way designs are implemented. In fact, this might not be a bad thing. The switch from arbitrary designs to more (1D-like layouts) is turning out to have less impact on chip area than many people expected. And they are lithographically friendly.”

The industry also will embrace complementary lithography or hybrid approaches. “There is no doubt in my mind that optical will go forever,” he said. “But I do think there is a possibility of hybrid lithographic approaches that are optimized for specific types of patterns. Complementary lithography is a powerful technique and makes the most sense. All of the (NGLs) have a lot of potential, but they are not being developed in the timeline the industry needs.”

By Mark LaPedus
Barclays Capital has maintained its semiconductor revenue outlook of minus 5% in 2012, plus 7% in 2013, followed by 5 to 6% growth in 2014. For semiconductor equipment, the firm lowered its wafer fab equipment (WFE) outlook to $26 billion to $27 billion in 2013, down from $27 billion to $28 billion in its previous forecast. This is down 5% to 10% from 2012, but Barclays sees 10% or more growth in 2014.

Barclays estimated that semi CapEx declined by 6% in 2012, incrementally worse than its prior forecast of minus 4%. Looking at 2013, Barclays expects semi CapEx to fall by 15%. Logic CapEx is expected to fall by 26% in 2013, while foundry CapEx will decrease by 7%, according to the firm.

Overall memory CapEx is tracking at minus 14% in 2012 and down another 18% in 2013, according to Barclays. On the NAND side, the firm sees only 30% to 40% bit growth in 2013. It also sees modest DRAM bit growth of 20% to 30% in 2013, with a “gradual recovery in DRAM pricing through 2013.”

Foundry vendors will continue to expand their 28nm capacity in 2013. “We believe cumulative 28nm capacity is on track to exit 2012 at 200,000-plus wspm, with another 80,000 to 100,000 wspm likely to be added in 2013. This suggests that the 28nm node is likely to be one of the larger nodes by historical standards, at about 300,000 wspm at peak,” according to the firm.

In total, the foundries are expected to have about 40,000 to 45,000 wspm of 20nm capacity installed by the end of 2013, with mass production beginning in 2014. “This capacity will be driven primarily by TSMC in anticipation of Apple’s A7 business in 2014 based on a 20nm high-k/metal-gate process,” according to Barclays.

Aventa Technologies, a provider of manufacturing equipment for emerging alternative energy markets such as high-temperature superconductors (HTS), has recently received funding from Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials. Aventa’s advanced vacuum deposition tools can accelerate the adoption of HTS solutions by increasing the productivity of HTS wire manufacturing.

MidAmerican Solar, a subsidiary of MidAmerican Renewables, acquired SunPower’s 579-megawatt Antelope Valley Solar Projects. The projects are located in Kern and Los Angeles Counties in Calif. Together, the two combined projects will form the largest permitted solar photovoltaic power development in the world. MidAmerican Solar is a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings, which itself is owned by Warren Buffett’s company called Berkshire Hathaway.

Semiconductor revenues worldwide saw a nominal growth in 2012 at less than 1%, reaching $304 billion, according to IDC. Semiconductor revenues will improve by 4.9% to $319 billion in 2013 and log a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.1% from 2011 to 2016, reaching $368 billion in 2016.

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.7 trillion in 2013, a 4.2% increase from 2012 spending of $3.6 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner. The 2013 outlook for IT spending growth in U.S. dollars has been revised upward from 3.8% in the Q3 2012 forecast.

By Mark LaPedus
In a blog, a former technologist from SEMI makes a strong case for 450mm fabs after dismissing the technology some years ago.

NASA faces some new and big challenges. There is wave of counterfeit parts hitting the space agency, a phenomenon that threatens the success of its missions, the safety of its personnel and the security of the country, according to iSuppli.

Three pure-play foundries, TSMC, GlobalFoundries and UMC, are expected to be in the top 20 rankings of leading semiconductor suppliers in 2012, according to IC Insights.

X-FAB Silicon Foundries announced its XT018 process, a trench dielectric isolated SOI foundry technology offering for 200V MOS capability at 180nm.

Soitec has more than doubled production of bonded silicon-on-sapphire (BSOS) substrates to meet increased demand from RF chipmaker Peregrine Semiconductor.

Soitec has signed a solar power purchase agreement in South Africa.

Mentor Graphics announced its new Tessent IJTAG solution, which allows designers to easily re-use test, monitoring and debugging logic embedded in existing IP blocks. In addition, ON Semiconductor has completed multiple tapeouts with Mentor’s Pyxis Custom IC Router.

C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays Capital, attended Lam’s analyst day. “One of the key points from the analyst day was Lam’s decision to focus on its core markets–etch, deposition, clean, and strip–as evidenced by its announcement to exit the PVD business and selling off the Peter Wolters business in 2013. We note that Novellus’s share in the PVD subsegment had steadily declined in recent years, reaching ~5-6% of the $1.6 billion market in 2011,” Muse said. “Lam had suggested that while the 2012 WFE is tracking weaker to ~$28-29 billion, the company anticipated the 2013 WFE market to recovery to $30B+, driven by a $1-$2 billion pick-up in memory, particularly NAND.”

Kulicke & Soffa Industries posted its results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Sept. 29.

STATS ChipPAC has expanded its packaging options for advanced embedded Wafer Level Ball Grid Array (eWLB) technology.

Deca Technologies rolled out its M-Series CSP product line featuring Adaptive Patterning.

Alchimer, a provider of deposition technologies for advanced 3D packaging, through-silicon vias (TSVs) and other electronic applications, announced the appointments of Bruno Morel as CEO.

RF Micro Devices signed a definitive agreement to acquire Amalfi Semiconductor.

Wide-band-gap semiconductor materials such as gallium nitride (GaN) offer far higher performance than traditional silicon but cost significantly more. However, by 2020 GaN costs will drop enough for it to become competitive based on performance gains, according to Lux Research.

Worldwide tablet shipments totaled 27.8 million units in the third quarter of 2012, says IDC. Android shipments, led by Samsung and Amazon, surged during the quarter, at the expense of Apple, which saw its share slip notably during the quarter.

The “smart trend” has hit IT as an unstoppable force, as 821 million smart devices (smartphones and tablets) will be purchased worldwide in 2012 and pass the billion mark in 2013, according to Gartner.

More than half of all electronic OEMs worldwide plan to reduce the number of contract manufacturers they work with during the next year, according to iSuppli.

By Mark LaPedus
Gartner has revealed its top predictions for IT and strategic technology. Among them: By 2014, three of the top five mobile handset vendors will be Chinese; by 2015, big data demand will reach 4.4 million jobs globally, but only one-third of those jobs will be filled; and by 2016, wearable smart electronics in shoes, tattoos and accessories will emerge as a $10 billion industry.

With about 21 months remaining until publicly traded U.S. component manufacturers must disclose their usage of conflict minerals to the government, the electronics industry appears to be unprepared, according to iSuppli. Conflict minerals are defined as those mined in locales of armed conflict and human rights abuses. These minerals, such as tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, are used in a wide range of components across the electronics supply chain.

According to IDC, end users’ concerns over foreign governments’ access to cloud data, particularly data stored in the U.S., are misplaced. “Scare stories over the Patriot Act abound, but they are fallacious,” said David Bradshaw, IDC research manager for European public cloud services, on IDC’s site. “The Patriot Act is nothing special, indeed data stored in the U.S. is generally better protected than in most European countries, in particular the U.K.”

Hans Mosesmann, an analyst with Raymond James, said: ”While the Street seems to view AMD as imminently going out-of-business we would caution investors otherwise. AMD’s strategy announcement next week (October 29th) will likely be the unveiling of an ARM 64-bit strategic collaboration. With SeaMicro’s world-class fabric, AMD’s strategic positioning becomes quite powerful. We also remind investors that AMD knows the server market quite well, it has an x86 license and it just hired Apple’s processor architect.”

STMicroelectronics reported its third quarter results. The company also cut jobs and reduced its capital expenditures to about $500 million this year. During the quarter, ST-Ericsson’s NovaThor L8540 LTE ModAp platform and the FD-SOI variant of this application processor product were taped out and sample wafer fabrication started. Samples of both products are expected to be available during Q4. STMicroelectronics will fab the chips. ST-Ericsson is a 50-50 joint venture between Ericsson and STMicroelectronics.

During a conference call to discuss its results, executives from STMicroelectronics remained bullish about its efforts with FD-SOI.

TSMC reported mixed results in the quarter. http://www.tsmc.com/english/default.htm “TSMC reported 3Q results and guided 2013 CapEx to $8.0 billion to $8.5 billion, versus $8 billion in 2012, below our estimate of $9 billion. We believe this is consistent with a weakening macro backdrop, coupled with expectation for Apple business to truly ramp in 2014, as opposed to 2013,” said C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays Capital. TSMC is expected to make applications processors at the 20nm node on a foundry basis for Apple.

TSMC has purchased 14 hectares of land near Hsinchu, Taiwan. TSMC plans to build an R&D facility for 450mm wafers, as well as 7nm process development, according to TSMC Chairman Morris Chang on Seeking Alpha. Chang also discussed TSMC’s outlook, CapEx, and other topics.

In partnership with the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC), ATIC will support 14 research initiatives over the coming year spanning Khalifa University, UAE University, American University of Sharjah, Masdar Institute and New York University Abu Dhabi. ATIC owns a majority stake in GlobalFoundries.

Mentor Graphics has released a new product in the HyperLy-nx suite. h In addition, Kalray has completed its new 160 million gate, 3 billion transistor multi-purpose processor array IC using a Mentor’s functional verification, physical design and verification, and design-for-test flow.

AMD announced its collaboration with Microsoft for more than 125 Windows 8-based PC designs from OEMs, including ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and more.

During a recent press event at the company’s new headquarters in San Jose, Calif., Maxim discussed integration and other trends in analog. The company also revealed a 90nm process technology and discussed a new class of power system-on-a-chip (SOC) products. And the company revealed its directions, including a strong push in the mobility segment.

Most mobile SoC GPUs were shipped by Qualcomm in the first half, according to Jon Peddie Research.

Texas Instruments announced third-quarter revenue of $3.39 billion and net income of $784 million. “For 4Q ‘12, TI guided revenues to fall 6% to 13%. Annual Capex guidance was cut by $200 million to $500 million, as TI dials back additional capital spending, commensurate with the environment,” said Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR.

Broadcom said revenue for the third quarter of 2012 was $2.13 billion. This represents an increase of 8.0% compared with the $1.97 billion reported for the second quarter of 2012 and an increase of 8.7% compared with the $1.96 billion reported for the third quarter of 2011. “Broadcom reported robust 3Q ‘12 results and gave 4Q ‘12 guidance near Street estimates, better than most peers,” Berger said.

KLA-Tencor reported mixed results. “KLA-Tencor’s results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2013 reflect today’s challenging demand environment for the wafer fab equipment industry,” said Rick Wallace, president and CEO.

It was a tough quarter for ATE giant Teradyne. The company reported Q3 revenues of $463 million, up 35% from the same period in 2011. But Q4 orders are down 61% from this quarter  quarter and Q4 revenue is forecast at between $235 million and $260 million.

By Mark LaPedus
Intel reported quarterly revenue of $13.5 billion and net income of $3.0 billion. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-reports-third-quarter-revenue-200100019.html C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays Capital, said: “Intel lowered its capex guidance to $11.3 billion for 2012 vs. our estimate of $11.8 billion. While we believe Intel will remain vigilant in the ramp of 14nm, as Intel looks to aggressively redirect space and equipment to 14nm (80-90% of equipment bought at 22nm is reusable at 14nm node), we see capex of ~$9 billion +/- $1 billion in 2013.”

Is AMD on the ropes again? AMD will cut its workforce by approximately 15%. It also announced revenue for the third quarter of 2012 of $1.27 billion and a loss of $157 million. “Management’s ongoing mis-execution in our opinion seems to be contributing to building too much inventory, firing top operational managers, channel misalignment (and) withdrawing from broad swaths of the market,” said Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR. Meanwhile, analyst, Hans Mosesmann of Raymond James, said: “The worrisome but not too surprising commentary by AMD management was that the PC market will take several quarters to recover. AMD now considers 85% of its current business ‘legacy’ PC, with the planned restructuring focused on attacking various adjacent high-volume markets.”

Seeking to accelerate the development of EUV lithography, ASML has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cymer for $2.6 billion. “Cymer’s light source is critical to EUV success and given recent slippage of key metrics, we think it makes sense for the technology to move in-house at ASML,” Muse said.

In response to its foundry rivals, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) has updated and accelerated its finFET roadmap.

GlobalFoundries could employ as many as 3,000 workers at its Malta plant, according to reports.

STMicroelectronics’ 28nm Fully Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (FDSOI) process, which uses substrates from Soitec, is now available for prototyping to universities, research labs and design companies through the silicon brokerage services provided by CMP.

Soitec announced total consolidated sales of 130.2 million euros for the first half, down by 19.9% on a yearly basis.

European government representatives, consortia and suppliers discussed 450mm fabs at Semicon Europa in Dresden.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted a book-to-bill ratio of 0.81 in September, compared to 0.84 in August, according to SEMI.

Mentor Graphics has rolled out a formal-based technology in the Questa Verification Platform.  In addition, Mentor announced new capabilities to complement TSMC’s 20nm manufacturing processes.  Meanwhile, SpringSoft and Mentor announced that the Laker-Calibre RealTime custom layout flow has been selected for the TSMC Custom Design Reference Flow. In a related announcement, TSMC has presented Mentor with two “Partner of the Year 2012” awards in various categories. And, Mentor announced the winners of its 24th annual PCB Technology Leadership Awards.

At the Storage Networking World (SNW) conference, there was no shortage of SSD presentations. But none of the keynoters who shared their data center experiences had deployed any SSDs in their systems. This seemed particularly odd to The SSD Guy.

Amazon is in talks to buy the mobile chip business of Texas Instruments. TI’s chips are used in Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet.

FormFactor completed its acquisition of Astria Semiconductor Holdings and its subsidiary MicroProbe.

Lam Research achieved revenue of $906.9 million, up 22.3% from prior quarter, in first full quarter of consolidated results with Novellus.  “Based on continued push-outs of NAND spending, Lam guided to December quarter revenues of $820-880 million, well below consensus of $927 million,” said Barclay’s Muse. “While management had previously suggested that 2012 WFE was tracking to the low end of the $29-30 billion outlook, management took the opportunity to lower their 2012 WFE outlook to about $28-29 billion.”

Xilinx announced fiscal Q2 2013 sales of $543.9 million, down 7% sequentially and down 2% from the second quarter of the prior fiscal year.  Barclay’s Muse said: “Xilinx reported mixed September quarter results and then guided to worse December quarter, highlighting continued macro pressure for semis.”

Microchip Technology has lowered its forecast. “Our lower than anticipated net sales activity in the September quarter was driven primarily by macroeconomic and industry conditions,” said Steve Sanghi, Microchip’s president and CEO. “The overall global economic outlook continues to be poor and is adversely impacting our business as well as the rest of the semiconductor industry.”

Marvell expects net revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2013 will be in the range of $765 million to $785 million, compared with prior outlook of between $800 million to $850 million. “The continued slowdown in the global economy during the third quarter is resulting in a weaker PC market than previously anticipated and thus lower demand from our storage HDD customers,” said Sehat Sutardja, Marvell’s chairman and CEO. FBR’s Berger said: “We think Marvell has a structural management problem that inhibits the firm from realizing real change, may discourage the development of formalized engineering processes, and keeps the firm on what seems to be a self-destructive path of no growth and limited traction in cellular. With the board unwilling to make real changes, business at Marvell could migrate from bad to worse over time.”

The NAND and NOR flash memory market landscape is shifting rapidly, with increasingly sophisticated mobile handsets playing a leading role in driving industry trends and determining which suppliers will be successful, according to IHS iSuppli.

By Mark LaPedus
In the late 1990s, a group led by Intel launched a consortium to propel extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography into the mainstream.

Originally, the consortium, dubbed the EUV LLC, envisioned the advent of EUV scanners that would move into production at the 65nm node. Clearly, the now-defunct consortium underestimated the difficulties and challenges associated with EUV.

ASML Holding, the sole EUV tool supplier, has experienced ongoing delays and problems with the technology. EUV is tardy for the 14nm node and could possibly miss the 10nm window. And there are also signs that ASML’s EUV customers, and its new investors, are becoming increasingly impatient regarding the delayed delivery schedules for EUV.

Many blame the delays on the EUV power source. For years, Cymer, the key developer of EUV sources, has struggled to meet its specified targets. The other EUV source suppliers, Gigaphoton and Xtreme, are also behind.

In a drastic step to solve the lingering problem, ASML has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cymer for $2.6 billion. Despite the acquisition, ASML still faces some challenges to get Cymer’s EUV source efforts back on track.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Lost in the shuffle are the ongoing issues with the EUV mask blanks, pellicles, resists and other parts of the supply chain.

The source of the problem
It is unlikely that ASML, and its customers, will pull the plug on EUV in the near term. The industry has poured billions of dollars into EUV. Recently, for example, Intel invested some $4.1 billion in ASML, as part of an effort to raise the overall confidence level in EUV and the 450mm wafer transition. TSMC and Samsung also recently invested in the Dutch-based lithography giant for similar reasons.

Intel and others have backed EUV for years. In the 1990s, there were fears that optical lithography would run out of gas, prompting the need for a next-generation lithography (NGL) technology. More recently, EUV became the leading NGL candidate. The other NGLs, maskless lithography and nanoimprint, are lagging behind.

Compared to optical lithography, EUV is a radically different technology. Using a 13.5nm wavelength, EUV is a soft X-ray technology in which the processing steps take place in a vacuum chamber. EUV also uses defect-free mirrors that reflect light via interlayer interference.

There are three types of EUV source technologies: laser-produced plasma (LPP), discharge-produced plasma (DPP) and a hybrid approach. In LPP, plasma is generated by a focused laser pulse hitting an appropriate target material. In DPP, the plasma is generated within an electrode system by an electrical discharge in the gas phase. Laser-assisted discharge plasma (LDP) is the hybrid technology. For the commercial market, Cymer and Gigaphoton are working on LPP technology, while Xtreme is developing an LDP source.

Meanwhile, ASML is expected to ship its NXE:3300B, its first EUV production tool, later this year. In January, ASML promised an acceptable throughput of 69 wafers an hour (wph) for the tool. In the future, ASML has said it needs to reach 250 watts of average source power to achieve the 125 wph throughputs sought by its customers.

In a recent interview, Yan Borodovsky, an Intel senior fellow and director of advanced lithography at the Technology and Manufacturing Group in Portland, said that EUV source power needs to be in the range of 1,000 watts for patterning the contact holes. This is partly due to the much slower resists required for good contact hole patterning. Contact resists must be in the range of 60 to 70 milliJoules/cm(2).

But amid ongoing delays for the EUV light source from Cymer, ASML recently lowered its targets and promised a throughput in the “30ish” range in terms of wph in 2012. Right now, however, Cymer’s EUV light source has been exposing wafers at up to 11 Watts in power, resulting in 7 wph for the NXE:3100. The NXE:3100 is a pre-production EUV machine.

In the lab, ASML and Cymer have demonstrated a sustained 30-watt source exposure power potential, which would enable the NXE:3300B to expose 18 wafers per hour. ASML’s specified target remains at 105 Watts, or 69 wph, to be achieved for 2014 production.

Clearly, ASML’s acquisition of Cymer is aimed to accelerate the development of EUV and the sources. ASML’s expertise in lithography systems design and integration supposedly will reduce the risk and accelerate the introduction of this technology.

Going forward, ASML faces an uphill battle. “Regarding field performance, Cymer highlighted an average power of 9 to 13 Watts, droplet stability of better than 0.5%, and 60% source availability, enabling 100 wafer throughput per day,” said C.J. Muse, an analyst at Barclays Capital, in a research note prior to the acquisition. “We note that the 60% source availability is down from 70% in the prior two quarters, suggesting progress is still slow here.”

Cymer has been able to improve the tin droplet stability with a new steering mechanism. “As for downside, Cymer is still not able to show equal to or better than 0.2% dose stability as per ASML’s specs,” Muse said. On its roadmap, Cymer hopes to deliver a 20 watt source, with a <0.5% dose stability and a 90% duty cycle by year’s end. By mid-2013, Cymer plans to have a 40 to 60 watt source at less than 0.5% dose stability.

Like Cymer, the other EUV source providers are struggling. “Xtreme has apparently resolved the reliability issues, but power scaling remains a focus,” Muse said. “And Gigaphoton continues to make incremental progress, though an integrated real pilot tool is not scheduled to be released until 2013.”

Forgotten pieces in the puzzle
The source has garnered most of the attention, but there are also other challenges. One forgotten piece of the EUV puzzle is the pellicle. EUV masks do not make use of a protective pellicle, which could introduce undesirable and killer defects in the flow. “That also means the mask life may be shorter,” said Banqiu Wu, principal member of the technical staff and chief technology officer for the Mask and TSV Etch Division at Applied Materials.

Stefan Wurm, the director of Sematech’s lithography program, raised another concern: There are problems with EUV mask blanks. “I am much more worried about the mask issue,” Wurm said at a recent event. A Sematech assignee, Wurm is also a principal member of the technical staff at GlobalFoundries.

EUV mask blanks have MoSi multilayers. They must be free of defects and particles to a much higher degree than today’s mask substrates. There are only two mask blank suppliers, Asahi Glass and Hoya. And only one fab tool vendor, Lasertec, is developing an EUV blank inspection tool.

“If you look at blank inspection, that’s a big issue,” said Franklin Kalk, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Toppan Photomasks. “How many mask blank companies are there? There might be two. How many inspection tools do they need? They only need a couple. How do you make a business of blank inspection tools for EUV if you are never going to sell more than five? That’s a tough business model.”

For some time, the industry has also come to the troubling realization: EUV mask blanks will have defects in some form or another. “We will always have defects on our blanks,” Kalk said. “Therefore, we will need to manage those defects.”

In one strategy, mask makers will first map the defects for an EUV blank. Then, they will pattern around the defects to avoid them. “I think it would be prudent to use fiducial marks on the blanks and do two separate blank inspections. You would inspect the multilayer and then put down the absorber stack and then re-inspect it. Then, you map all those defects,” he said.

Then, there are several ways of writing around the defects. “One is that you shift the pattern. You basically bury the multilayer defects under the dark areas, where the absorber won’t be removed. Or, if you can’t do that, and you know that a defect is going to fall in an area that’s written, then you write in such a way that the defect still doesn’t print on the scanner,” he said. “The alternative, of course, is after you’ve written the pattern, you go in and inspect. And then you repair.”

Like the EUV power source, the EUV blank inspection, pattern inspection, repair and related tools must be ready in time. “That whole strategy of managing defects is going to be the key issue for masks,” Kalk said. “The tools and the defect-management strategy are not trivial.”

By Mark LaPedus
According to a recent study commissioned by Intel, nearly all countries surveyed say that mobile manners have become worse compared to a year ago.

Spot shortages, and possible price increases, for NAND flash have suddenly surfaced in the market amid recent production cuts by major memory suppliers.

SEMI said total fab spending could increase by 16.7% in 2013 and reach a new record high of $42.7 billion.

Intel said that Q3 revenue is expected to be below the company’s previous outlook due to lackluster PC demand. Full-year capital spending is expected to be below the low-end of Intel’s previous outlook of $12.1 billion to $12.9 billion, as the company accelerates the re-use of existing equipment to the 14nm node. “Intel’s guidance cut seems widely expected given many reports about weak consumer PC demand due to macro weakness in China and Europe and with a production/demand air pocket before Win8 launches in late October,” said Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24.4 billion for the month of July 2012, a slight increase of 0.2% from the previous month. C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays Capital, sees a downturn coming based on the SIA figures. “As expected SIA data released saw semi revenues post modest growth and confirms our outlook for semis to track down -2% to -8% year-over-year, depending on demand in the month of September,” he said.

For months, there have been rumors that Fujitsu will sell its chip unit to Renesas. In the meantime, Fujitsu Semiconductor has unloaded and sold its LSI assembly and test facilities to J-Devices.

Integrated Silicon Solution has completed an equity investment in Nanya. ISSI will have access to leading-edge process technologies with certain volume guarantees from Nanya for specialty DRAM production. Taiwan DRAM maker Nanya will also provide foundry support capabilities for the continued development of ISSI’s NOR flash and analog products.

Altera unveiled several key technologies planned for its next-generation of 20nm products, including stacked 3D chips.

Cree rolled out 100mm epitaxial wafers based on silicon carbide (SiC). The wafers enable high-voltage bipolar devices such as IGBTs.

Semiconductor R&D spending is projected to hit a record-high of $53.4 billion in 2012, according to IC Insights.

The Microsoft/Intel cartel, known as Wintel, now finds itself playing catch-up in the new era of smartphones and media tablets, according to IHS iSuppli.

Global smart meter shipments grew 33.6% in Q2 over the previous quarter, and were up nearly 51.3% year over year, according to IDC.

Despite a fuzzy economic outlook and concerns regarding the decline in sales of consumer LCD products, TFT LCD panel suppliers are still expecting 2012 shipments to grow 8% to 757 million and revenue to increase 13% to $85.3 billion, according to NPD DisplaySearch.

By Mark LaPedus
Mentor Graphics announced that GlobalFoundries Inc. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) will use Mentor’s SmartFill technology from its Calibre YieldEnhancer line for 20nm manufacturing. In addition, Mentor recently posted its results and raised its guidance for fiscal year 2013.

At next week’s Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco, GlobalFoundries plans to demonstrate a design flow for its 28nm technology. The flow provides support for advanced analog and mixed-signal designs. In addition, GlobalFoundries has selected Synopsys‘ Yield Explorer solution as part of its Yield Management System (YMS) for faster yield ramp in production.

The Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) released the OPDK v1.0 standard as approved by the Open Process Design Kit Coalition. The OPDK v1.0 standard includes the schematic symbol standard and the design parameter and callback specification.

Three silicon foundries, including LFoundry, MagnaChip and TSMC, are expanding their embedded memory intellectual-property (IP) offerings in an effort to reach into new and emerging markets.

Taiwan’s Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), the world’s largest semiconductor packaging and test company, has opened its phase 3 manufacturing facility in Weihai, Shangdong province, China. The new building is part of ASE’s expansion plans to increase its manufacturing capacity for discrete packaging and test.

Barclays Capital raised its forecast for FormFactor, as the struggling probe-card maker upgraded its own guidance for the quarter. “We continue to expect FormFactor’s cash burn to end in 2H ‘12, though (we) don’t anticipate GAAP profitability through 2013,” said C.J. Muse, an analyst with Barclays.

VLSI Research maintained its semiconductor equipment forecast, which calls for the industry to fall by 7.2% in 2012 over 2011. But business is getting better. Fab equipment makers “are now seeing a strong momentum in order activity carrying over into the second half of the year. This will offset some of the weakness seen in the NAND space where end demand has fallen short of expectations, prompting NAND manufacturers to postpone some capacity additions,” according to VLSI Research.