IBM Corp. has announced it will join with other leading chip makers to develop a new manufacturing technology viewed by many as critical for the continued advancement of microprocessors and other types of silicon chips.
Called Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) lithography, the technology is being supported by Intel Corp., Motorola Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and others as part of an industry consortium founded in 1997 and known as the EUV Consortium LLC. IBM has added its name to that group.
EUV lithography should allow chip makers to continue shrinking the size of computer circuits that are etched on the surface of silicon chips, which in turn allows them to keep boosting performance. Lithography technologies used today are expected to reach certain physical limitations in the next two to three years, which is what makes an alternative like EUV so important.
“When we lose the ability to make smaller and smaller features on silicon, that’s when Moore’s Law comes crashing to a halt,” said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst with Insight 64 in Saratoga, Calif.
Using EUV, chipmakers should be able to etch circuits on the surface of chips that have dimensions smaller than 0.1 microns. One micron is equal to about one one-thousandth of a millimetre; many of today’s computer chips are manufactured using a 0.18 micron manufacturing process.
Intel, which applauded IBM’s addition to the consortium, said EUV lithography should allow it to manufacture microprocessors that reach speeds of up to 10GHz by 2005 or 2006.
IBM had been pursuing an alternative lithography technology called Electron Beam Projection, or “e-beam,” and its decision to back EUV is important for several reasons. Not least, it sends a strong signal to the rest of the semiconductor industry, including companies that make equipment for manufacturing and testing semiconductor chips, that EUV has widespread support and is worthy of their investment.
“This certainly assures the industry that it can coalesce around EUV,” said Brookwood, who characterized IBM’s addition to the consortium as “phenomenally important.”
Nevertheless, IBM will continue to develop e-beam in parallel with its EUV efforts, and appears content to hedge its bets at this stage.
– IDG News Service
