Ousted Intel CEO Gelsinger joins alternative EUV source technology developer

Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has joined the board of XLight, a US startup aspiring to develop an EUV source based on a free-electron laser. The Californian firm is working on a feature-complete prototype that will be connected to an ASML scanner and running wafers by 2028. Down the line, XLight expects to “significantly enhance ASML’s technology roadmap, transform semiconductor fab capabilities while reducing capital and operating expenses.”

XLight is taking a different approach than the free-electron laser technology previously evaluated – and ultimately dismissed – by ASML. By accelerating electrons and passing them through undulators with a periodic magnetic field, a coherent and high-intensity EUV beam is produced. In XLight’s philosophy, a separate particle accelerator complex feeds multiple EUV scanners inside a fab.

XLight claims its source produces four times as much power as today’s most advanced source, which would probably amount to 1,200+ watts. Deploying the technology “can optimize patterning improvements, productivity and yield, unlocking billions in additional annual revenue” through a 50 percent wafer cost reduction and lowering capital and operating expenditures by a factor of three, Gelsinger writes on Linkedin.

The last time Bits&Chips talked to ASML about EUV sources, in Q4 last year, the firm said that it wasn’t considering other technologies. “Especially now that we’re going to 1,000 watts, we don’t need anything else. Other aspects will be limiting throughput,” said Stef Hendriks, product manager EUV source at ASML.