• blame [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    10 days ago

    It will be interesting to see what ends up happening with EUV Lithography in China. Currently ASML is the only company that makes these machines and they are not allowed to sell them to China. TSMC has them of course but SMIC does not. EUV Lithography may be the most complex manufacturing process ever invented and as far as I’m aware is required for making the most cutting edge chips. It’s not to say that China can’t build these machines instead I think it will be interesting to see what their solution is.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      9 days ago

      Looks like China’s approach is going to be to us a particle accelerator instead. A lot of the complexity in ASML machines comes from the fact that they need them to be portable in order to ship them to clients around the world. Since China’s goal is to produce chips domestically, this isn’t a constraint. The accelerator approach also has several advantages over ASML approach:

      Compared with current ASML EUV technology, SSMB is a more ideal light source. It has a higher average power and higher chip production output with lower unit cost.

      ASML creates an EUV source from laser-produced plasma, where strong laser pulses are projected to liquid microdroplets of tin. The laser crushes the droplets and produces EUV pulse light during the impact. After complex filtering and focusing, an EUV light source with a power of about 250W is produced.

      Before reaching the chip, the EUV beam undergoes reflection from 11 mirrors, each causing about a 30 per cent energy loss. As a result, the power of the beam is less than 5W when reaching the wafer. This can become an issue when manufacturing turns to 3nm or 2nm.

      SSMB technology avoids such concerns. SSMB beams achieve a higher output power of 1000W, and due to its narrow bandwidth, fewer reflecting mirrors are needed, which naturally generates higher terminal power.

      https://archive.ph/NrC6B