The domestic EUV lithography machine is expected to make a breakthrough, and only one of the three core technologies is expected to succeed.
A few days ago, the domestic lithography machine once again became a hot spot in the market, and many ** said that China's disruptive innovation under the EUV lithography machine has made a breakthrough, and this team is Tsinghua University, and the specific project is the SSMB-EUV program.
There are noses and eyes, and even pictures and truths. But in fact, we believe that it is not easy to achieve such a breakthrough in lithography from 0 to 1, and then from 1 to 100 to achieve large-scale commercial production, but for the world's only ASML, it is not so easy to have an EUV lithography machine.
To be honest, everyone should be cautious about this kind of rumors of a similar unconfirmed major breakthrough, because there is a high probability that it is false.
The lithography machine (including the EUV lithography machine) is composed of three major systems, involving tens of thousands of parts, and the EUV lithography machine is composed of more than 100,000 parts and more than 5,000 global ** chains, which is the result of the cooperation of top enterprises in all links of the industrial chain.
The three major systems of a lithography machine are the light source, the optical system, and the dual workstation.
In terms of light source system, on the DUV lithography machine, excimer lasers are used, and the technology is in the hands of Thermo and Gigaphoton.
In EUV lithography, the light source is different from DUV in that it bombards the SN droplets with a high-power CO2 laser with a high-power laser as the main component. ASML's EUV lithography machine, its EUV light source is the result of the cooperation between ASML in the Netherlands, TRUMF in Germany, and Zeiss in Germany.
And Tsinghua University's SSMB program, a few days ago, actually mentioned the possibility of becoming an EUV light source after the success of this plan. Note that this refers to the possibility of becoming a light source for EUV lithography machines, not the inevitability, the current SSMB is not stable and it has not yet achieved a breakthrough from 0 to 1, let alone from 1 to 100.
In addition to the optical system, there are two parts: the illumination system and the objective lens system. The illumination system optimizes the imaging process and achieves improved resolution;The projection lens system focuses the mask pattern on the image. ZEISS is the exclusive supplier of ASML basic optical components, and currently only ZEISS has the ability to immerse optical components and EUV optical components in the world, and there is no other manufacturer in the world except Zeiss.
In ASML's EUV lithography machine, the optical system is about 15 meters and weighs up to 35 tons, by 350,000 individual components;Among them, the lighting system has a total of 150,000 components, weighing 15 tons;The projection lens has a total of 20,000 components and weighs 20,000 tons.
At present, there is still a big gap between the national optical system, and at the level of Zeiss companies, there is still a big gap between the immersion optical system and the EUV optical system.
Finally, there is the double table, which refers to the measurement platform and the ** platform, which considers the MA (Moving Average Deviation) indicator, which affects the lithography resolutionMSD (Standard Deviation of Movement) affects the defined engraving accuracy, velocity, acceleration, settling time of the machine, etc., and it affects the performance.
ASML's immersion lithography machine has a CD of 38nm, so the MA is required to be within 1nm, the MSD is above 7nm, and the conveyor belt acceleration must reach 5G.
At present, the teams of Huazhuo Precision and Tsinghua University in China have put on a double workbench, and the performance is very good, and the MA of the workbench is 15nm, MSD is 26nm, which basically meets the requirements of ASML immersion lithography machine.
In China, if the visible light EUV lithography machine wants to be surpassed, it must be surpassed in the light source, optical system, and workbench, and the only thing that is relatively sure is that it is a double standard, such as the understanding of the light source and optical system is not very large.
What's more, in addition to these three cores, there are many technologies, as mentioned earlier, ASML's EUV lithography machine production, including 100,000 pieces, a large number of pieces must be supported by the world's leading technology in various fields.
So, to put it mildly, I don't want to praise, but I want to remind everyone, don't be blindly optimistic, don't believe rumors, the research and development of high-tech technology has always been a long road, there are no shortcuts, especially the so-called disruptive innovation that suddenly appears in the news, which is often fake.