On October 17th, 2018, Samsung held Samsung Tech Day at Silicon Valley. In this day, in the memory department, Samsung announced 256GB 3DS RDIMM, 7.68TB QLC for the enterprise, sixth-generation V-NAND tech, and Second-Gen Z-NAND, in foundry department, they announced 7nm low power plus(LPP) which used EUV(extreme ultraviolet) photo-lithography technology was developed and started production.

▲ Samsung

EUV in semiconductor industry refers to the manufacturing process that utilizes an ultra-infrared ray light source in photo process, which is an important process in making semiconductors. When producing a semiconductor chip, a silicon-based disk called wafer, or round disk, is coated with a photo-processing facility called a scanner. It is going to carry out a photograph that projects laser light source onto wafer in order to etch circuit patterns within this facility. This will form billions of tiny, microscopic circuit elements inside a semiconductor chip that can be seen as a microscope. EUV process means that these exposure phases are processed using light sources with microwave wavelengths. In the manufacturing of semiconductor chips, ultra-fine circuits are needed on top of wafers. Only then can devices such as transistors and capacitors concentrate more on a limited wafer space with a diameter of 300mm and increase performance and power efficiency. Because the EUV light source has a much shorter wavelength than the fluoride-argon light source applied to the existing process, patterns can be carved in finer detail. The new EUV scanner utilizes EUV with 13.5-nanometer wavelengths, which is less than one-tenth as compared to the light waves currently used by the fluoroscopic laser scanner.

▲ EUV Samsung

Using this technology, Samsung can reduce total masks, which improves productivity. Charlie Bae, the executive vice president of foundry sales and marketing team at Samsung, said "This fundamental shift in how wafers are manufactured gives our customers the opportunity to significantly improve their products' time to market with superior throughput, reduced layers and better yields. We’re confident that 7LPP will be an optimal choice not only for mobile and HPC but also for a wide range of cutting-edge applications."

▲ semimd.com

by Bak Jeong-Heon, 10/28/2018