ASML readies next-gen EUV pellicle for production

You’d think that anything reducing the amount of precious EUV radiation hitting the wafer in an EUV scanner would get the thumbs-down from semiconductor manufacturers. But they made an exception for the pellicle. Even though the membrane that keeps stray particles away from the EUV photomask will inevitably absorb some EUV radiation, thus decreasing throughput, the idea of having their costly masks open and ‘exposed’ was simply unbearable to chipmakers. They insisted on having a way to protect it.

Since there were no takers at the time, ASML was more or less forced to take up pellicle development itself. Four years ago, its efforts reached the industrialization phase. What has happened since then? Raymond Maas, ASML’s product manager for pellicles, fills us in.