PFI-TT: Enhancing the Mass Production of Advanced Integrated Circuits

PFI-TT：增强先进集成电路的量产

• 批准号: 2141227
• 负责人: Jorge Rocca
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: Colorado State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-03-15 至 2025-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2141227&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: PFI; TT; Enhancing; Mass; Production

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation-Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project aims to develop new technology to bridge the knowledge gap in the generation of new high-power light sources that are required to increase the speed of mass production of the advanced integrated circuit (IC) chips. The high-volume manufacturing of ICs is one of the world’s most economically important industrial activities, enabling data communication, information technology, medical diagnostics, and transportation. The project will improve semiconductor lithography, the process of printing the circuit patterns onto silicon chips during production. This is the most critical and capital-intensive step in high-volume manufacturing of advanced ICs. The printing of smaller features to allow for more transistors per chip depends strongly on better light sources. Improvements in the efficiency and power of these light sources will improve the productivity and cost of lithography tools, reducing the fabrication cost of advanced ICs. The proposed project aims to improve the efficiency in the machines used in EUV lithography, a new projection lithography technique that uses dramatically shorter wavelength light. EUV lithography entered high volume manufacturing in 2019 after 3 decades of development. In advanced lithography machines, EUV light is produced by laser heating of liquid tin micro-droplets from which highly charged tin ions emit the EUV radiation at wavelengths near 13.5 nm. While the EUV light power presently achievable from laser-created plasmas is sufficient to initiate high volume manufacturing of a new generation of more powerful ICs, significantly higher EUV power is still required for high-throughput and cost-effective manufacturing. An increased understanding and control of the micro-droplet plasma evolution in EUV lithography sources can potentially increase their EUV conversion efficiency and average power. Taking advantage of previous work conducted at CSU, the plan is to demonstrate the technology and methodology to image the evolution of the tin targets plasmas using an EUV laser probe to benchmark models. The EUV probe can penetrate regions of the plasma inaccessible to visible laser probes and detect concentration of neutral atom invisible to visible light, gaining the understanding necessary to improve the printing of the most advanced semiconductor circuits.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这种创新技术翻译（PFI-TT）项目的广播公司影响/商业潜力旨在开发新技术，以弥合新的高功率光源的知识差距，这些差异是为了提高高级综合电路（IC）芯片的质量生产速度。 IC的大批制造是世界上最重要的工业活动之一，可以使数据通信，信息技术，医学诊断和运输。该项目将改善半导体岩性图，即在生产过程中将电路图案打印到硅芯片上的过程。这是高级IC的大容量制造中最关键和资本密集型的​​一步。打印较小的功能以允许每芯片更多的晶体管，这在很大程度上取决于更好的光源。这些光源的效率和功能的提高将提高岩性工具的生产率和成本，从而降低了高级IC的制造成本。拟议的项目旨在提高EUV岩石学中使用的机器的效率，这是一种新的投影岩石摄影技术，它使用了急剧短的波长光。经过30年的发展，EUV岩石学于2019年进入了大量制造。在高级岩石学机器中，EUV光是通过液体锡微滴体的激光加热产生的，高电荷的锡离子从13.5 nm附近的波长处发出EUV radiotion。尽管目前从激光创建的等离子体中实现的EUV光功率足以启动新一代更强大的IC的大量生产，但对于高通量和成本效益的制造，仍然需要更高的EUV功率。对EUV岩性源中微滴滴等离子体进化的理解和控制可能会提高其EUV转化效率和平均功率。利用以前在CSU进行的工作，该计划是展示使用EUV激光探针到基准模型的技术和方法，以对TIN目标的演变进行图像。 EUV探针可以穿透可见的激光探针无法访问的等离子体的区域，并检测中性原子的浓度是可见光的看不见的，获得了改善印刷最先进的半导体电路所必需的理解。这项奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，反映了通过评估范围的Intellia the Intellitia the Intellitial and Inthlimial and Intellit and Inthlotial的支持。