Why is nobody talking about the fact that the ultimate limiting factor of 7/5/3nm nodes is the type of litography being used (i.e. only EUV-equipped foundries can go beyond 7nm) and that the only serious manufacturer of cutting edge EUV tools is ASML (which has only managed to develop powerful EUV light sources with tremendous r&d expenses and years of delays) ? Once you have an EUV system like NXE3400B (just one of these EUV tools is $200M and up... plus high running expenses), the rest is "easy". And by easy I mean "possible" or "up to the foundry". I feel like the R&D expenses and the history of EUV development show a bleak picture of the future of semiconductor miniaturization. BTW: As far as I know, commercial 3nm EUV tools do not exist yet. If you're looking forward to 3nm products, you should expect to wait another 5 years. 5nm to 3nm is going to take a lot longer than 7nm to 5nm.
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