This video is a really cool dive into EUV for the uninitiated (me) https://youtu.be/MiUHjLxm3V0?si=kEPSicC2WXYhcQ6L

• eddyg

  today at 8:00 PM

  Or this video, which came out before Veritasium's

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2482h_TNwg

  • EnPissant

    today at 10:19 PM

    I thought this video was a lot better than the Veritasium video. The Veritasium video was awkward. I think they tried to follow the formula from the (excellent) blue led video that performed so well, but it just didn't work.

  • Hikikomori

    today at 8:16 PM

    https://youtu.be/NGFhc8R_uO4

    Or this presentation which came out way long ago.

    • kristjansson

      today at 10:07 PM

      This is worth the (re)watch every time it comes up.

• seanalltogether

  today at 8:38 PM

  The thing I didn't understand after watching that video was why you need such an exotic solution to produce EUV light. We can make lights no problem in the visible spectrum, we can make xray machines easily enough that every doctors office can afford one, what is it specifically about those wavelengths that are so tricky.

  • today at 10:02 PM

  • zozbot234

    today at 9:46 PM

    There is such a thing as X-ray lithography, but it comes with significant challenges that make it not really worth it compared to EUV.

    • bpavuk

      today at 9:55 PM

      I'd like to hear more about these challenges

      • magicalhippo

        today at 10:14 PM

        As I understand it, primarly because due to the high energy level of x-rays, light x-ray interacts very differently with materials[1]. Primarily they get absorbed, so very difficult to make mirrors or lenses, which are crucial for litography to redirect and focus the light on a specific miniscule point on the wafer.

        The primary method is to rely grazing angle reflection, but that per definition only allows you a tiny deflection at a time, nothing like a parabolic mirror or whatnot.

        [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_optics

  • on_the_train

    today at 8:43 PM

    It really is the specific wavelength. Higher or lower is easier. But euv has tricky properties which make it feasible for Lithography (although just barely it you have a look at the optics) but hard to produce with high intensities.

    • formerly_proven

      today at 9:43 PM

      Specifically, what makes x-rays easy to generate are these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristic_X-ray In essence, smashing electrons into atoms allows you to ionize the inner shell of an atom and when an electron drops down from an outer shell, the excess energy is shed as high-energy photons. This constrains the energy range of X-ray tubes ("smash electron into metal") to wavelengths well below 13.5nm.

      (These emission lines are also what is being used in x-ray spectroscopy to identify elements)

      • s0rce

        today at 9:55 PM

        You can also generate broad spectrum bremsstrahlung radiation easily, this is widely used for medical X-rays.

    • YetAnotherNick

      today at 8:54 PM

      Any source to this? I am hearing this for the first time.

      • s0rce

        today at 9:56 PM

        ITs easy to make X-rays, you just hit a metal target with electrons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_tube

• hinkley

  today at 7:32 PM

  The whole “exploding tiny drops of metal” in the middle of this is just Loony Toons. This machine is literally insane and two of the companies I am long-long on would be completely fucked without it.

  • patmorgan23

    today at 7:49 PM

    You forgot WITH LASERS, and IN A VACUUM

  • atonse

    today at 8:04 PM

    Yes it was crazy when I first heard about it "wait what? they shoot it in mid-air?" and that was before I found out they did that like 30k times a second.

    But now 100k times a second apparently. Humans are amazing.

    • hinkley

      today at 8:23 PM

      You have a machine that’s basically a clean room inside and one of the parts is essentially electrosputtering tin but then throwing all the tin away and using the EM pulse from the sputter to do work.

      Oh and can you build it so it can run hundreds or thousands of hours before being cleaned? Thanks byyyyyyyyeeeeee!

      • lelandbatey

        today at 9:26 PM

        The inside of those machines are far, far cleaner than the inside of any clean room ever entered by a human. They have to be molecularly clean.

        • b3orn

          today at 9:37 PM

          Which isn't easy considering they explode tin droplets in the machine. I think that's the point the other commenter wanted to make.

    • flowerthoughts

      today at 8:57 PM

      > We are going to spray expensive stuff in an extremely fine and precise line. Then we're going to shoot a laser at each droplet.

      < Why?!

      > To make a better laser.

      < Yes, of course you are.

      > 100,000 times per second.

      < [AFK, buying shares.]

      • hinkley

        today at 9:04 PM

        I have shares in one of their biggest customers, and one of their customer’s biggest customers.

        We are quickly leaving the realm of dependent variables still looking anything like diversification.

• culi

  today at 7:34 PM

  Here's your link without the surveillance

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUHjLxm3V0

  • skrebbel

    today at 8:08 PM

    With slightly less surveillance

    • lencastre

      today at 9:26 PM

      try duck player

• hinkley

  today at 7:51 PM

  Okay this is weird.

  > The key advancements in Monday's disclosure involved doubling the number of tin drops to about 100,000 every second, and shaping them into plasma using two smaller laser bursts, as opposed to today's machines that use a single shaping burst.

  This is covered in that video. Did they let him leak their Q1 plans?

  • hobofan

    today at 10:29 PM

    That has been covered before in other videos[0] that this is their roadmap to higher power, so I'm also not sure what they have announced now that wasn't previously announced.

    [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXnrzS3aGeM

> The company's researchers have found a way to boost the power of the EUV light source to 1,000 watts from 600 watts now.

> "We see a reasonably clear path toward 1,500 watts, and no fundamental reason why we couldn't get to 2,000 watts."

The light power increase is even more impressive at 67%:

> The company's researchers have found a way to boost the power of the EUV light source to 1,000 watts from 600 watts now.

with more on the horizon:

> We see a reasonably clear path toward 1,500 watts, and no fundamental reason why we couldn't get to 2,000 watts.

So how small are individual components (e.g., transistors) nowadays? Presumably there's a lower limit: once you're a few atoms across, it seems that you can't go any smaller (?).

• ahazred8ta

  today at 7:24 PM

  Gates are about 30-50 nm wide, even though they're called '3nm' for marketing reasons.

  • phkahler

    today at 8:40 PM

    Metal pitch is 26nm. That means parallel wires can be placed 2 wavelengths apart with 13.5nm light.

  • penguin_booze

    today at 9:12 PM

    Like free range chicken.

    • kakacik

      today at 9:16 PM

      You only need to live in reasonable place for that phrase to have a proper meaning, across whole market from cheapest to most expensive.

• whazor

  today at 7:04 PM

  This is about increasing output per machine via upgrades.

• cyptus

  today at 8:21 PM

  some gates are only 10-14 nm wide, thats about 50 silicon atoms!

• ranger_danger

  today at 7:24 PM

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_nm_process

  • hinkley

    today at 7:59 PM

    I still think we should have gone with average gates per square mm as a new yardstick. It would also make sense to the Numbers Go Up people.

  • itopaloglu83

    today at 9:17 PM

    It’s going to be quite funny if they can go below 40nm in gate pitch size, because they’ll need to call it 0nm.

    • dogma1138

      today at 9:21 PM

      They are moving to angstroms, hence 18A for example.

> SAN DIEGO, California

> to help retain the Dutch company's edge over emerging U.S. and Chinese rivals

Great news, but what a strange attempt to equate the U.S. and China in this and build a narrative. Cymer was founded in San Diego.

• petcat

  today at 7:44 PM

  Yeah it's an interesting angle in the article. The EUV light source technology is completely designed, developed, and manufactured by Cymer in California, which is a US company that ASML acquired in 2013. If export control agreements were not in place then ASML would have never been permitted to acquire Cymer. And if they are not enforced then the US would almost certainly require ASML to sell Cymer back to US ownership, TikTok-style.

  The reality is that it's American technology that is used in ASML machines so I don't know why the article tries to frame it like it's a competition.

  • adrian_b

    today at 10:35 PM

    There is much more in an ASML machine, besides the UV source.

    So the ASML machines combine technologies developed in various places, not only in USA, even if the UV source is indeed a critical component. While an ASML machine would not work without the UV source, it would also not work without many other critical optical and mechanical components.

    If it were so easy to make a lithography machine when you have a UV source, Cymer would have remained an independent company or it would have been bought by a US company. Cymer has been bought by their only customer.

    The same happens when you look at a PC, it is likely that it contains something essential that comes from USA, i.e. the CPU logic may be designed by AMD, but the manufacturing technology is designed in Taiwan, the memories may be designed and made in Korea, other chips may be designed and made in Taiwan, other components come from Japan, the PCB may have been designed in Taiwan, but actually made in China, and so on.

    So yes, it has some important US technology in it, but there is a very long way from a CPU logic design to a physical computer and most of that rarely has anything to do with USA.

    The same happens with an ASML machine.

  • merb

    today at 9:52 PM

    Your take is also a bad one. No what asml builds is not American technology. Why asml succeeded is because they got tons of company’s and people to help them advance the technology of the chip industry. Yes it wouldn’t be possible without the Americans. But it would also not be possible without the Europeans, the Koreans, etc… what asml did was basically ask the technology leaders in each field to build their best product so that they can take their parts and assembly this awesome piece of technology.

  • ahartmetz

    today at 8:26 PM

    Which American rival would that be anyway? I have not heard of any.

    • petcat

      today at 8:38 PM

      xLight is the promising new US competitor to Cymer. Lots of funding from the US CHIPS And Science Act. Founded by Dept. of Energy engineers who formerly worked on large-scale X-Ray systems and particle accelerators.

      • ahartmetz

        today at 10:40 PM

        Oh, alright. I was thinking of full lithography machines.

• christkv

  today at 8:42 PM

  I think the Japanese are also working on potentially competing technology

This is a steep increase of power to get out of a vacuum system that is highly sensitive to temperature changes.

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