Toby Sterling of Reuters reports that Belgium’s imec had several breakthroughs with ASML’s new chip printing machine, the High NA. Sterling writes:
Belgium’s imec, one of the world’s top semiconductor R&D firms, on Wednesday reported several computer chip-making breakthroughs at a joint laboratory it operates with ASML, using the Dutch company’s newest 350 million euro ($382 million) chip printing machine.
imec said it had successfully printed circuitry as small or smaller than the best currently in commercial production, for both logic and memory chips, in a single pass under ASML’s new “High NA” tool.
The development suggests leading chipmakers will be able to use the tool as planned in the coming several years to make generations of smaller, faster chips. […]
“A second tool is required for the volume of wafers and experiments needed to support a development line,” Intel director of lithography Mark Philips told Reuters in an email.
Other chipmakers that have ordered a High NA tool include Samsung Electronics, and memory specialists SK Hynix and Micron.
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