Carl Zeiss received two orders for the extreme ultraviolet lithography system AIMS™ EUV

Date Announced: 25 Apr 2012

Two out of four members of the SEMATECH EMI Partnership placed an order with Carl Zeiss to purchase an actinic aerial image metrology system AIMS™ EUV for reviewing defects in advanced masks needed for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL).

JENA/Germany, 25.04.2012. GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Intel, Samsung Electronics, and TSMC are the members of the SEMATECH EMI Partnership. According to the slot assignment two out of the four semiconductor companies have placed orders with Carl Zeiss Semiconductor Metrology Systems (SMS) Division. Carl Zeiss SMS develops the AIMS™ EUV tool in cooperation with the scanner optics department of Carl Zeiss SMT, Lithography Optics (LIT), and external partners.

"The orders represent an important milestone in the development of AIMS™ EUV and confirm the relevance of EUV technology for the industry. We expect the remaining two EMI members to place their orders in accordance with their slot assignments agreed upon at the start of the EMI consortium." said Dr. Oliver Kienzle, Managing Director of Carl Zeiss SMS.

The AIMS™ EUV platform represents a critical tool for the development and manufacturing of defect-free EUVL masks supporting the 22 nm half-pitch (HP) technology node requirements with extendibility to the 16 nm HP node. A first production-worthy version of the platform is scheduled for delivery in the third quarter of 2014.

SEMATECH launched EMI in 2010 to fill a key infrastructure gap for EUV in the area of mask manufacturing, by funding development of critical metrology tools. EMI is administered by SEMATECH’s Lithography Program, based at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany.

To initiate EMI’s first major project, SEMATECH and Carl Zeiss have signed a collaboration agreement for the development and manufacturing of the industry’s first-ever actinic aerial image metrology EUV system targeted for EUVL volume production.

Source: Carl Zeiss SMS

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