Chips, also known as semiconductors, though largely go unseen, are at the heart of all the digital products that surround us — from smartphones and computers to home appliances, life-saving equipment, communication and energy.
To get better-performing devices, we need smaller chips. Researchers have developed and produced a new chip that has enabled the launch of a new generation of high-performance smartphones.
They used state-of-the-art extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and new material processes to make smaller semiconductors become a commercial reality.
The smaller the semiconductor, the more of them you can fit into electronic devices – and the more high-performing and energy-efficient that electronic is.
In this sense, semiconductors have come a long way. In 1968, they measured 20 thousandths of a millimetre, or 20 000 nanometres (nm). Today’s mass-produced semiconductors can be just 10 and 14 nm – but researchers are continually striving to make them even smaller.
This revolution in size is what fuels Moore's Law, which predicts that the number of transistors on a microchip will double approximately every two years. This has been happening for decades, and it means our smart devices get more and more powerful with each generation.
Although the technology to make ever smaller semiconductors exists, producing them in a cost-effective fashion that can be streamlined for mass production is a very different challenge.
For the new chip, the researchers developed a system that used EUV’s extremely short wavelengths of ultraviolet light to transfer a pattern from an opaque template onto a light-sensitive material on the semiconductor.
This guides the printing of the integrated circuit. The work involved finessing both the lithography technique as well as the materials used in the patterning.
The successful integration of EUV technology has led to more powerful, efficient, and cost-effective electronics.
The progression in semiconductors is essential for the continued advancement of electronic devices and modern society’s economic stability.