EUVL partnership makes its stand
Members of industry, government and the news media gathered at Sandia
National Laboratories/ Livermore this week to mark completion of the first
full-scale prototype lithography machine for making computer chips using
extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light.
The technology — developed by Lawrence Livermore, Sandia and Lawrence
Berkeley national laboratories — is a breakthrough that will lead
to microprocessors tens of times faster than today’s most powerful
chips and create memory chips with similar increases in storage capacity.
Wednesday morning’s EUV Lithography Milestone Celebration featured
remarks from Gen. John Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security
Administration; Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel; Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher,
D-Tassajara; and Sunlin Chou, Intel senior vice president and chairman
of the EUV Limited Liability Company Management Board.
The prototype EUVL machine, called the Engineering Test Stand, is located
at Sandia and was developed in a unique industry-government collaboration
between the three DOE laboratories — which joined their research
efforts in a Virtual National Laboratory — and a consortium of semiconductor
companies called the EUV LLC.
The consortium includes Intel Corporation, Motorola Inc., Advanced Micro
Devices Inc., Micron Technology Inc., Infineon Technologies and International
Business Machines.
EUV lithography was developed because the current chip-printing technology
is expected to reach its physical limits in the next few years. It will
no longer be able to continue printing smaller and smaller features, thus
limiting the number of circuits that can be printed onto chips and halting
advances in speed and power.
Current lithography technology is expected to allow semiconductor manufacturers
to eventually print circuits as small as 0.1 micron in width, or 1/1,000th
the width of a human hair. EUV lithography technology is being developed
to allow manufacturers to print circuit lines down to at least 0.03 microns,
extending the current pace of semiconductor innovation at least through
the end of this decade.
The Engineering Test Stand prototype EUVL machine produced its first images
on silicon in January.
"The completion of the prototype machine marks a major milestone
for the program, since we have proven that EUV lithography works,"
said Chuck Gwyn, program manager of the EUV LLC.
The prototype machine will be used by LLC partners and lithography tool
suppliers during the next year to refine the technology and prepare to
create a prototype commercial machine that meets industry requirements
for high-volume chip production.
Processors built using EUV technology are expected to reach speeds of
up to 10 GHz in 2005-2006. By comparison, the fastest Pentium 4 processor
today is 1.5 GHz.
Gen. Gordon called the national laboratories’ work in EUVL "spectacular."
"These kinds of challenges are exactly the kind of work our national
laboratories do best," said Gordon. "The EUVL partnership demonstrates
that fundamental science and innovative ideas can be applied toward solutions
in both the commercial and public sectors. This really is a partnership
that works in every dimension."
"The cooperation and coordination in this project has been phenomenal,"
said Intel CEO Craig Barrett. "Getting together with the best in
government research has made this project very exciting."
Intel’s Sunlin Chou said "I feel extremely privileged to have
shared in this extraordinary feat. It’s a proud and happy day for
the national labs."
The Laboratory’s EUVL team is headed by Don Sweeney of Physics and
Advanced Technologies’ Information Science & Technology Program.
Other team members include Sasa Bajt, Sherry Baker, Kenneth Blaedel, Butch
Bradsher, Charlie Cerjan, Henry Chapman, Courtney Davidson, Daren Dillon,
Jim Folta, Fred Grabner, Layton Hale, Patrick Kearney, Cindy Larson, Rick
Levesque Paul Mirkarimi, Nhan Nguyen, Don Phillion, Mark Schmidt, Frank
Snell, Gary Sommargren, Regina Soufli, Eberhard Spiller, John Taylor and
Chris Walton.
James Glaze heads the Virtual National Laboratory.