Patton said he would not put extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography in the critical path at the first installation but it would eventually come in the 7nm node where it can show reduced cost.

Two EUV scanners are coming to Globalfoundries wafer fab campus in Malta, New York, in 2017 and more are coming in 2018, Patton said. "Contacts and vias are to bring in EUV lithography with a good return on investment," he said. "ASML has a backlog of 12 EUV scanners for 2017 and 6 for 2018. Two of the 12 are ours," Patton said.

While progress has been made on EUV source illumination there is still work to be done on resist and line-edge roughness at throughput rates and on masks. There are still concerns over such things as mask defectivity and developing a protective pellicle that is 205W-compatible and not a big attenuator of source energy.



Gary Patton, CTO of Globalfoundries



"That's why the lower risk path is contact and vias. In other areas defects can be a problem," said Patton. He pointed out that Globalfoundries has mask making operations that could be put to EUV masks at both Burlington, Vermont and Dresden, Germany. Patton said he expected the EUV scanners would be in commercial use in 2019. "Even taking delivery of scanners in 2017 there is a lot of work to do when you make any change. But EUV will start at 7nm in what will be a long-lived node," said Patton.

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