How Extreme Ultraviolet Light Is Set to Make Your Processor Faster

You may already know that atomic number 14 chips areetched using deep ultraviolet lithography , but you might not realize that we ’ve reached the demarcation of what can be done using normal ultraviolet light rays . Fortunately a new kind of light , calledExtreme Ultraviolet , is about to down in the hand of microprocessor chip manufacturers — and it should help your processor keep up withMoore ’s Law .

presently , chips are etched with deep ultraviolet light which has a wavelength of 193 nanometre . But with yield geometries shrinking — right down to 28 nm in some vitrine — to embrace more on to scrap , manufacturers have hit a brick bulwark .

Enter Extreme UV : high - free energy ultraviolet actinotherapy with wavelengths between 124 and 10 nanometer . It ’s been discussed as a theoretic new means of chip construct for a few years now because its short wavelengths offer more precision . But it ’s always been hampered by one major trouble : it ’s been difficult to make an EUV illumination strong enough . Without sufficient intensity it ’s either impossible or distressingly slow to etch chips .

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Now , though , foundry engineering developer ASML ha denote a commercial-grade image EUV twist which will be producing light with 80 watt of power this year and — hopefully—250 in 2014 . At those powers it should be potential to etch 125 wafers per hr . That ’s a style off Intel ’s need — it recently put forward that it require EUV to produce 1000watts to hit its yield demand — but it ’s enough for ASML to be confident that Extreme Ultraviolet could be a Real Thing by some time in 2015 .

And in aboveboard , it better had . Because by 2015 , chip manufacturer are hoping to manufacture geometry of just 10nm — which will be all but unacceptable to achieve accurately using normal UV igniter . Time to get extreme . [ Hot HardwareviaSlashdot ]

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