EUV startup is seeking $5 million

Published:2012/7/10 1:45:00 Author:Ecco From:SeekIC

Zplasma Inc. (Seattle, Wash.), an extreme ultraviolet light source company, is seeking $5 million in venture capital or strategic corporate investment. The company has been in talk with many companies in the EUV lithography sector, including light source suppliers and leading lithography equipment maker ASML.
Zplasma Inc. plans to use the money on the investment of the prototype source module that can supply 200 watts at the intermediate focus of a EUV lithography scanner. The technology should allow a throughout of 125 wafers per hour. However, it has one major problem on manufacturing powerful sources of 13.5 nanometer wavelength light. The problem may block the introduction of EUV lithography and potentially hold back continued miniaturization in the semiconductor industry.

According to Henry Berg, CEO of Zplasma, the company already has a prototype that produces a "Z-pinch" plasma region 3 millimeters long by 1-millimeter in diameter. Berg indicated that the company aims to develop a prototype integrated into an ASML scanner two years from when work is started.
However, as integration with ASML could take two years from when the work starts, it need longer time to make EUV lithography in a volume production. Delivery of several NXE:3300 production EUV lithography machines from ASML at a cost of more than $100 million each is expected this year for use in production, in 2013 albeit with lower power sources at around the 50-watt mark.

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