xLight, a U.S.-based startup developing an EUV light source based on a particle accelerator, on Tuesday signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) with the U.S. Department of Commerce for $150 million in proposed federal incentives under the CHIPS and Science Act. xLight came out of the blue earlier this year when it hired Pat Gelsinger, former chief executive of Intel, as executive chairman. The money, if awarded, will be used to bring xLight's free-electron laser (FEL) based light source closer to reality once it is built in Albany and its viability is proven in practice.
$150 million from the Trump Administration
The Trump administration has been particularly sceptical about Joe Biden's CHIPS and Science Act, claiming that it is a waste of taxpayers' money. However, it looks like the U.S. government has changed its mind with xLight, which promises to develop a new FEL-based light source for EUV lithography tools that would replace traditional laser-produced plasma (LPP) sources based on CO2 lasers. If xLight succeeds in building its technology and wedding it to ASML's lithography scanners, then the U.S. will control an important part of the global supply chain for these tools, which is perhaps something that got the current American leadership.
"Building an energy-efficient EUV laser with tenfold improvements over today's technology will drive the next era of Moore's Law, accelerating fab productivity, while developing a critical domestic capability," said Pat Gelsinger, Executive Chairman of the Board, xLight, and General Partner, Playground Global.
Note that in deals like the one announced between xLight and the U.S. DoC, an LOI is a non-binding agreement in principle: it signals that both sides intend to move forward, but it does not obligate the government to release funds or the company to receive them, though it means that the government has finished a preliminary evaluation and selected the company for potential funding. xLight will now work with the U.S. DoC and teams at the Albany Nanotech Complex, so expect further disclosures in the coming months. In parallel, the company will continue its joint development work across the Department of Energy lab network.
A breakthrough technology
xLight is developing a FEL-based light source that can be used to deliver coherent EUV radiation directly to existing ASML wafer scanners. The approach is significantly different from LPP-based light sources that ASML (well, its U.S.-based Cymer unit) once developed for its current litho tools.
xLight gets powerful FEL by first using a particle accelerator, which speeds up electrons to very high velocities with radiofrequency (RF) and magnetic fields; these fast particles are then fed into an FEL, where the electrons from the accelerator pass through undulators that create a periodic magnetic field and, as a result, generate coherent, high-intensity light beams featuring required wavelengths (13.5nm in case of EUV, though scalable to 2nm for soft X-ray). The FEL is housed in a separate facility adjacent to the fab (i.e., not inside the cleanroom). Once EUV light is generated, it is piped via a network of specialized grazing-incidence mirrors with turning stations to multiple ASML scanners, up to 20 per FEL unit. This light then enters the scanner's illuminator, where it is shaped and directed onto the wafer.
As there is no plasma conversion step, xLight claims that its device enables higher brightness, narrower spectral width, and femtosecond pulses for sharper patterning. However, the company has yet to prove two critical things: that its technology works in general and is viable for mass production of semiconductors. The latter will arguably be harder than the former, as xLight will have to find a company with multiple Low-NA (or better High-NA) EUV tools that is willing to conduct experiments with scanners that cost around $200 million (nearly $400 million for High-NA EUV) a unit.
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