China set to build giant chip factory using a particle accelerator
China set to build giant chip factory using a particle accelerator
Unprecedented technology may offer a way to bypass US sanctions and see China lead semiconductor industry.
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The first or second paragraph should've said "ASML generates 250W EUV finally ending up 5W EUV due to reflection, whereas this will end up with 1kW EUV for chip production". It wasn't clear at all why they were doing this until 3/4 through the article. And I assume it's 1kW EUV as the source and with less mirrors possibly 20W or more on the wafer (?).
Maybe I missed it, but it doesn't mention the amount of energy required to end up with this 20W EUV beam. A particle accelerator probably uses more, but maybe the productivity balances out the efficiency?
I don't think it mentions the amount of energy required either, it mentions that there is less noise with the particle accelerator approach which looks to be the main advantage.
I figure the increased power getting to the etching process also helps increase throughput. I'm guessing that you only need a total amount of energy to do a unit of etching work, so with more power you can do more units of etching work per unit time.
That sounds plausible, and you could also likely sustain energy output easier with this setup which will help with the throughput as well. It seems like a big design constraint on ASML machines is that they wanted them to be portable so they could ship them to customers in different countries. Once you remove that constraint you get some benefits at the cost of the sheer size of the facility.