IMEC sets 2010 date for EUV pre-production tool installment

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- 10/16/2007

Stepping closer to its sub-32-nm goals, Belgium-based research center IMEC today announced that it has reached an agreement with lithography systems provider ASML Holding NV to install an ASML extreme ultra violet (EUV) pre-production tool in IMEC's 300-mm facility in 2010.

In a statement today, IMEC said that the deal will enable IMEC and its partners to do research on 22-nm CMOS on what it called "the world's most advanced lithography system."

The installation of the pre-production tool follows ASML's alpha-demo tool (ADT) at IMEC from which first high-resolution images were obtained with a tin source from a Philips EUV tool at the end of September. According to IMEC, the goal of the ADT is to pioneer the technology, demonstrate feasibility and build the infrastructure, while the pre-production tool will exhibit higher source power and optimized optics, which will enable full-scale development of EUV technology up to production-worthy standards.

"These results mark a cornerstone in the development of EUV lithography," Luc Van den hove, executive VP and COO of IMEC, said in a statement. "They represent the first real data, building confidence for EUV to be a viable technology for 32-nm half pitch lithography and below."

This is not the beginning of IMEC and ASML's cooperation in the EUV realm; last year, IMEC claimed to be the world's first research institute to receive an EUV lithography tool when ASML shipped one to the institute in August 2006. IMEC has made significant strides lately in its push towards stronger CMOS technology at the 32-nm process node and below: on Monday, IMEC launched research on next-generation DRAM metal-insulator-metal capacitors (MIMCAP) process technology as part of its sub-32nm CMOS device scaling program which has seen cooperation from the memory industry's top five technology developers, along with a cadre of major logic IDMs and foundries.

But IMEC is not the only one making a push toward ever-tinier CMOS processes.  Today, Toshiba Corp. announced that it has validated the use of imprint lithography technology in the development of 22-nm CMOS devices, and has even fabricated narrow trench features at dimensions down to 18-nm.

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