A consortium of leading government researchers and chip makers, includingIntel, Advanced Micro Devices and Motorola, showed off a machine Wednesday that uses special ultraviolet lasers and mirrors to pack many more transistors on a single computer chip. The technology, if commercialized, would extend the industry's record of doubling the number of transistors on a chip every 18 to 24 months. Experts have been predicting an end to that fantastic growth curve in the next few years. As the circuitry on computer chips gets more microscopic, it becomes more and more difficult to devise tools fine enough to print the ultra-small circuits.
Lithography is the process of using light to imprint transistors onto silicon wafers to make chips.
Steve Leibson, chief analyst at the Microprocessor Report, said once this type of equipment is in volume production, possibly in 2006, it should keep the semiconductor industry humming at its current pace until about 2015. But that will be the end of the line for current chip-making techniques. Intel and AMD are already moving toward chips that are 0.13 of a micron wide, and current technology can probably handle circuits as small as 0.1 of a micron. With EUV lithography, chip makers can print circuit lines well below 0.1 of a micron, down to at least 0.03 of a micron. Unlike traditional lithography, which uses lenses to shine the beams of light to etch the patterns onto silicon wafers, EUV uses mirrors similar to those in the Hubble Telescope.