Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong has secured additional extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment, which is essential to production of next-generation semiconductors, from ASML.

Samsung is increasing foundry prices to support more investment in 5nm EUV process technology.

Extreme ultraviolet lithography is the next phase of chip manufacture.

Samsung presented plans to begin mass production of 3nm Gate-All-Around field-effect transistors (GAAFET) as early as 2021. The company also confirmed that it would begin its production of 7nm EUV chips in the second half of this year.

The companies will accelerate the adoption of EUV lithography for high-volume production, including the current latest available equipment for EUV (0.33 Numerical Aperture, NA). Moreover, they will explore the potential of the next-generation high-NA EUV lithography to enable printing of even smaller nanoscale devices advancing semiconductor scaling towards the post 3nm logic node.

7nm+ design libraries are not available yet, and thus design engineers at Apple, Nvidia or Qualcomm (to mention a few) are not expected to have a holistic (to borrow the terminology from ASML) view on cost/ benefits of 7nm+ with EUV.

The tapeout project, geared toward advancing 3nm chip design, was completed using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and 193 immersion (193i) lithography-oriented design rules and the Cadence Innovus Implementation System and Genus Synthesis Solution.

Intel claimed that it maintained Moore's law scaling with a 10-nm SRAM that it described here at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). However, Samsung followed by describing a smaller 256-Mbit SRAM made with extreme ultraviolet lithography and expressed confidence in EUV.

Samsung Electronics is positively considering rolling out a next-generation DRAM using an early 10 nano process as early as the beginning of 2019 by constructing a dedicated production line with EUV exposure equipment in the Hwasung Semiconductor Factory Complex in Gyeonggi-do. Experts say that this strategy aimed to secure profitability while widening micro-process technology gaps with competitors in the booming DRAM market.

Samsung will describe a 7nm SRAM made with extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in February. Other ISSCC papers will detail memories, sensors and processors spanning everything from fast DRAMs to location trackers embedded in a boot.

According to industry sources on October 19, Samsung Electronics is considering a plan to purchase 10 extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tools from ASML.

Underpinning all these delays and difficulties with new processes is the continued difficulty of developing production-ready extreme UV (EUV) lithography techniques.

In the second half of 2018, it is planning to deploy the 7-nanometer process, using extreme ultra violet (EUV) lithography for the first time. It will be followed by 6-nanometer and 5-nanometer in 2019.

TSMC reports 76% yields on 256Mbit SRAM modules manufactured on 7nm.

TSMC's paper described a test chip that could pass for a commercial part and said it had "healthy" yields. Samsung described its use of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to repair what was clearly a research device, suggesting what it will call 7nm could still be years away.

If you ask Anthony Yen, who leads EUV lithography development at TSMC, how critical EUV is to Moore's Law, he won't beat around the bush: "Totally critical. 100 percent critical. Very, very critical." TSMC expects to adopt EUV in 2020, when the company aims to begin producing chips on its 5-nm manufacturing line.

Samsung agreed with Dutch-based ASML to deploy extreme ultraviolet (EUV) equipment for mass production in their 7 nanometer processes.

Chief Executive Officer Peter Wennink says most of his customers expect to incorporate EUV by 2019, and he's prepping for orders within the next year. "The industry needs EUV," he says.

TSMC said it has started work on a 5nm process to push ahead its most advanced technology, yet the company remains undecided on the adoption of extreme ultraviolet lithography at that node.

ASML has signed an agreement with one of its major US customers to deliver a minimum of 15 ASML EUV lithography systems to support increased development activity and pilot production of future-generation manufacturing processes.

ASML expects new extreme ultraviolet lithography machines to reach a production standard that satisfies all of its semiconductor-equipment customers by 2017, CEO Peter Wennink said.

TSMC has pulled in plans for initial production of its 16nm FinFET process to the end of 2013. In addition, it hopes to adopt extreme ultraviolet lithography to make 10nm chips starting in late 2015 but is still researching e-beam as an alternative.

At the 2012 International Symposium on Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography, industry and research experts named the timely development of a source suited for high-volume manufacturing as the most critical issue. Other challenges remain the development of yielding masks and the further development of high-quality EUV resists.

ASML is negotiating with Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) over taking up to a 10% stake in the company under its equity-plus-research program.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they have developed a technique for pushing the resolution of high-speed e-beam lithography to write patterns for chips as small as 9-nanometers across, much smaller than previously thought possible.

The fab tool industry has undergone a sea of change...

The most important announcement from SEMICON West was a subtle statement from Globalfoundries about tools. Putting some bits together, it is pretty clear that the company is going to use EUV lithography at the 15nm node.

Research institute IMEC has appointed Kees Den Otter, former president of TSMC Europe, to the position of vice president of emerging business.

The largest semiconductor companies will need to shoulder much of the burden for the expensive R&D projects facing the chip industry, including the development of 450mm equipment and the inspection tools needed for EUV masks, said Dan Armbrust, the new CEO at Sematech.

Like others with a stake in EUV lithography development, maskmakers are being asked to contribute money to a Sematech effort to close the funding gap in mask inspection development. It's a tough question, however, given the low probability of a return on that investment anywhere in the near future.

Intel expects to complement 193nm immersion lithography with either EUV or electron-beam direct write lithography for the 11nm generation, expected to arrive in 2015, according to Yan Borodovsky, director of Intel's Advanced Lithography and Manufacturing Group.

450mm production fabs could be pushed out to 2015 or 2016 - or two years later than some had hoped, according to analysts. And EUV may miss the insertion into the 16nm node, thereby pushing the technology out to the 13nm logic node in 2015.

The consensus is that availability of defect-free masks and, perhaps more importantly, a lack of funding for an infrastructure that can inspect those masks, is the most critical issue faced today by EUV lithography development. But working groups are making progress defining - and funding - the solution.

Sematech wants to expand its wings. The chip-making consortium is now looking at ways to bring fabless companies into the fold and is also hoping to expand its collaborative efforts with fab tool makers.

Hynix, IMEC, Intel, Samsung, Toshiba and possibly TSMC are the initial customers for ASML's "pre-production" extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tool, according to an analyst.

IMEC's revenues will be down only about 5% this year, compared to drops of 20% generally among electronics vendors. "R&D is the last part to cut because they need to continue to innovate," said company CEO Van den hove.

Eli Harari, founder, chairman and chief executive of SanDisk, made the predications during a keynote. He also warned that the NAND industry is at the "crossroads," as there is a "disconnect" between future capacity requirements and demand.

Citing the embodiment of its concept of "holistic lithography," ASML has unwrapped two hardware/software components to help chipmakers improve lithography process windows while avoiding costly and timely steps and maintenance downtime.