Hand in hand with the development of chips which use copper components such as IBM Corp’s CMOS7S process, goes the creation of new lithography machines for etching the actual schematic designs onto silicon wafers, which are then transformed into chips. Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, TRW Inc and Motorola Inc are are betting that the use of EUV extreme ultraviolet lasers instead of conventional lasers will enable them to make chips with as little as 0.05 microns between the wires, compared with today’s 0.25 micron and proposed 0.18m designs. That’s why Intel created the Extreme Ultraviolet Ltd to productize techniques developed by the US Department of Energy (CI No 3,245). Funded to the tune of $250m, other companies can join EUL by buying shares at $5m and getting in at the most basic level of participation, which is what AMD and Motorola have done. The alternative is to wait until the technology is complete, and then buy it from manufacturers who license and incorporate EUV into their products. IBM Corp is taking another approach and is investigating the use of light with even shorter wave – Xrays. It says Xray lithography may be available by the time it comes round to creating a second generation copper design process.
