Just one firm on this planet makes the Excessive Ultraviolet Lithography (EUV) machine and that’s the Dutch agency ASML. The machines are used to assist produce chips utilizing the 7nm course of node all the way down to 3nm. The newest model of the machine, the Excessive-NA EUV machine, will probably be used to provide chips made utilizing a 2nm node and decrease. As the method node drops, so does the scale of the transistors used permitting a chip’s transistor depend to rise making it extra highly effective and/or energy-efficient.
What an EUV does is create advanced circuitry patterns thinner than human hair on silicon wafers. The brand new machines permit extra element to be produced on the wafers serving to to simplify the manufacturing of chips with advanced designs.
As we stated, ASML cancelled a $230 buy of a Excessive-NA EUV. However earlier than you marvel the way it may promote this highly effective machine for a worth that low, it was the Lego model of the ASML TWINSCAN EXE:5000 machine being bought on ASML’s on-line retailer. This is able to be an awesome present for the nerd in your buying checklist who not solely is aware of what a Excessive-NA EUV machine is, however is aware of precisely what it does. However earlier than you get able to open your pockets, we now have some unhealthy information.
The decrease priced TWINSCAN EUV Lego package may also be bought by ASML staff solely. | Picture credit-ASML
I feel that ASML missed a chance right here to advertise the corporate, chipmaking normally, and its enterprise. The package has loved such excessive demand that gross sales are restricted to at least one per ASML worker. All the above restrictions additionally apply to ASML’s lower-priced TWINSCAN Lego package which began life as a coaching instrument and consists of 600 items for $166.70.
