Startup Substrate is building next-generation semiconductor fabs using advanced X-ray lithography. This goes beyond extreme ultraviolet 13.5 nanometer wavelengths down to 0.01 nanometers. At the core of Substrate’s technology is a custom particle accelerator which propels electrons (produced by an unknown emitter) to near the speed of light using radio-frequency cavities. As these electrons pass …
China has built a prototype EUV (extreme ultraviolent) lithography machine in a high-security laboratory in Shenzhen. They had a semiconductor Manhattan Project”. The prototype was completed in early 2025 and is now undergoing testing. It occupies nearly an entire factory floor and was assembled using reverse-engineered components. Ramp-up timeline Functional for chip production around 2028. …
Samsung has a new roadmap that targets mass production of 2nm process technology by 2025 and 1.4nm by 2027. TSMC is planning to start production of 2-nm chips in 2025. Intel Foundry Services (IFS) plans to offer its own GAA-based process at its 18-A node that’s equivalent to 2 nm by 2024. Samsung plans to …
TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and National Taiwan University (NTU) have shown a process that uses the semi-metal bismuth to enable the manufacture of semiconductors below 1-nanometer (nm). It will take about ten years to actually make below 1 nanometer chips. Historically, the feature size of a chips was the length of …
IBM announced the first chip with 2 nanometer (nm) nanosheet technology. IBM’s new 2 nm chip technology helps advance the state-of-the-art in the semiconductor industry, addressing this growing demand. It is projected to achieve 45 percent higher performance, or 75 percent lower energy use, than today’s most advanced 7 nm node chips. Four years after …
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) is planning to build several more chipmaking factories in the U.S. state of Arizona beyond the one currently planned. In May 2020, TSMC announced they would build a $12 billion factory in Arizona. This was a win for the Trump administration to bring global tech supply chains back from …
Taiwan Semiconductor will be mass-producing Apple’s new M2 chip in July for use in MacBooks for the second half of 2021. The M2 will eventually be used in other Mac and Apple devices beyond the MacBook. The new chipset is produced by key Apple supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chipmaker, using …
ESA-backed researchers demonstrate the laser-propulsion of graphene sails in microgravity. In an article recently published in Acta Astronautica, they report a scalable design that minimizes the overall sail mass and hence increases their thrust upon light irradiation. In addition, they prove the new sail concept by accelerating prototypes in a free-fall facility with 1W-lasers, reaching …
Argonne National Labs have developed a new technique, molecular layer etching, that may help develop microelectronics and show the way beyond Moore’s Law. Molecular layer etching could enable fabricating and controlling material geometries at the nanoscale, which could open new doors in microelectronics and extend beyond traditional Moore’s Law scaling. Chemistry Matters- Molecular Layer Etching …
EUV Lithography is enabling another reduction in chip dimensions by 5 to 10 times in line geometry and this will extend Moore’s law and improve processing speed, component density and reduce energy used. ASML is a world leader in lithography equipment. ASML 2019Q3 net sales came in at EUR3 billion. This will power 5G connectivity, …
TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor) announced that its seven-nanometer plus (N7+), the industry’s first commercially available Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology, is delivering customer products to market in high volume. The N7+ process with EUV technology is built on TSMC’s successful 7nm node and paves the way for 6nm and more advanced technologies. The leading edge is …