Breakthrough computer chip tech could help meet ‘monumental demand’ driven by AI
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This chip-patterning system uses extreme ultraviolet light to ‘paint’ patterns on silicon wafers.Credit: ASML
A powerful light source bigger than a London double-decker bus has set a record: it can create structures on a silicon wafer that are just 8 nanometres (nm) wide. Those are thought to be the smallest ever made in a single step by a commericial chip-patterning system. According to the system’s manufacturer, it could be used to make computer chips patterned with 2.9 times more transistors than chips produced with the previous generation of the light sources used for this purpose.
The device projects extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light through a patterned ‘mask’ onto the surfaces of silicon wafers coated with light-sensitive chemicals. In response to the light, the chemicals harden in the same pattern. The wafer is then chemically etched, and the process repeated, to produce all of the electric components of the chip, including tiny switches called transistors and the extremely fine wiring that connects them.
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