Intel Using 193-nm Immersion Lithography Making Lines and Spaces down to 15 nm and Intel Research Highlights

EETimes reports Intel Corp. claims that it has pushed 193-nm immersion lithography down to 15-nm–at least in the lab.

The disclosure is further evidence that 193-nm immersion — with some form of a double-patterning technique — can scale much further than previously thought. It also means that extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography could get pushed out–again.

There are various double-patterning schemes vying for dominance in the market. The major types include litho-etch-litho-etch, litho-freeze-litho-etch, and the sidewall spacer approach, also called SADP.

Intel may — or may not — use multiple double-patterning technologies. ”It depends on the layer,” Mayberry said.

He said that Intel has pushed 193-nm immersion with double-patterning down to 15-nm. This is still in the R&D phase; the scanners have only been able to print lines and spaces–and not actual chip features.

Instead of 193-nm immersion, Intel would rather use EUV for the 16-nm node. At this point, EUV is still not ready for prime time, as the alpha tools can only print lines and spaces ”down to 24-nm,” he said. As previously reported, EUV suffers from the lack of power sources, resists and defect free masks.

Intel Research Highlights

Intel Research Day Highlights

1. Confrontational computing. Intel and the University of California at Berkeley have rolled out The Dispute Finder, a technology that highlights disputed claims on Web pages you browse and shows you evidence for alternative points of view.
”Use this Web interface to tell Dispute Finder what snippets to highlight and what evidence to present for alternative viewpoints. You can create a new disputed claim, mark new instances of a claim on the Web, and add evidence that supports or opposes a claim,” according to the site. That site can be found here.

2. Intel and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are working on tele-immersive 3-D multi-camera room environments. These environments allow people to engage in distributed physical activities such as physical therapy, sport activities, and entertainment. In one demo, Intel showed ”virtual light saber dueling” between people in various locations–in 3-D. That site can be found here.

3. Intel also showed ScienceSim.com, a 3-D Internet technology. ”The 3D Internet refers to a currently disparate but rapidly converging set of 3D technologies used for visualizing 3D information on the Web,” according to that site. It site can be found here.

4. Platform power management (PPM), a research effort in Intel Labs, has helped enable up to a 50x reduction [most of the time 50-90% reduction] in platform idle power for Moorestown over today’s Atom-based platform, which translates to much longer battery life.

FURTHER READING
A review of next generation lithography from March 2009 at EETimes