ASML unveils new EUV light technique that will increase chip production by 50%

Researchers at ASML say they have found a way to increase a key chip-making machine’s production by 50 percent by 2030. They’ve increased the power of the EUV light source that prints the chips from 600 watts to 1,000 watts, meaning that the chip-making machine can make many more chips per hour, Reuters reports.

Chips are printed similar to a photograph - by shining an EUV light on a silicon wafer coated with specific chemicals. A more powerful EUV light source means that shorter exposure time is needed, so more chips can be made per hour.

Depending on the size of a chip, each wafer can hold anywhere from a handful to thousands of devices. According to the ASML researchers, the stronger light could increase production from about 220 to approximately 330 silicon wafers per hour by the end of this decade.

“It’s not a parlor trick or something like this, where we demonstrate for a very short time that it can work,” Michael Purvis, a lead technologist at the Dutch chip machine maker, told Reuters. “It’s a system that can produce 1,000 watts under all the same requirements that you could see at a customer.”

The ASML researchers achieved the power boost by simply amping up the approach that the ASML machines already use. To produce the light, the machine shoots a stream of molten droplets of tin through a chamber, where a carbon dioxide laser heats them into plasma. That makes the tin droplets emit EUV light, which is collected by precision optic equipment and fed into the machine to print chips, according to the news agency.

The researchers doubled the number of tin drops involved to about 100,000 per second. And instead of shaping them with a single laser burst, they now use two smaller bursts.

ASML believes that the new techniques will unlock more advances in the future, Purvis told Reuters. "We see a reasonably clear path toward 1,500 watts, and no fundamental reason why we couldn't get to 2,000 watts."

The faster production by ASML’s chipmakers will also make the chips cheaper, further cementing the Veldhoven-based company’s position as the world leader in this technology.