Samsung Electronics has joined an industry initiative developing 12-inch photomasks for future High Numerical Aperture extreme ultraviolet lithography.
Chipmakers have relied on six-inch photomasks for decades. The jump to 12 inches is intended to improve fab productivity, cut manufacturing costs and remove stitching constraints when producing advanced chips.
Photomasks carry the microscopic circuit patterns transferred onto wafers during lithography. Their precision directly affects device performance and manufacturing yield.
High NA EUV provides better resolution than today’s EUV systems, but its reduced exposure field can force chipmakers to split large patterns and stitch them together. Larger photomasks are intended to help get around that particular nuisance and allow manufacturers to make better use of ASML’s increasingly complicated and eye-wateringly expensive lithography kit.
Samsung will work with ASML and other industry partners on the mask technology, infrastructure, standards and research needed to make the 12-inch format practical.
The outfit plans to introduce ASML High NA EUV into high-volume DRAM production by 2028, which it claims will be the industry’s first use of the technology for volume memory manufacturing.
The improved resolution should help Samsung extend DRAM scaling while reducing the number of process steps needed for increasingly tiny features.
Samsung Electronics vice chairman and chief executive Young Hyun Jun said: “The AI era is transforming the semiconductor industry and increasing the importance of technological innovation across the entire value chain. Samsung is committed to maintaining leadership in advanced semiconductor manufacturing, including memory and foundry, through breakthrough technologies and strong partnerships. By further strengthening our collaboration with ASML, we are helping lay the foundation for the next generation of AI and semiconductor innovation.”
The inevitable AI seasoning aside, High NA EUV is becoming an important part of the industry’s plan for squeezing more transistors into advanced logic and memory devices.
ASML’s High NA systems increase the numerical aperture from 0.33 in conventional EUV equipment to 0.55, improving the resolution available for smaller process geometries. Getting there has required a new optical system and substantial changes across the lithography ecosystem, including resist materials, metrology and masks. Moving to 12-inch masks will require far more than simply ordering a bigger piece of glass and finding a larger cupboard for it.
ASML president and chief executive Christophe Fouquet said: “Samsung has been one of ASML’s most important innovation partners for many years. Together, we have helped advance the technologies that underpin modern semiconductor manufacturing. As the industry enters a new era driven by artificial intelligence, close collaboration with our customers becomes even more important. We look forward to working with Samsung to enable the next wave of semiconductor innovation.”
Samsung and ASML expect their expanded partnership to cover advanced memory technology and new manufacturing approaches beyond the larger-mask programme.
