A recent paper from Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology showed how that complexity could be drastically reduced with less mirrors, more power and greater efficiency.I read somewhere that China is doing a lot of research into using free electron lasers for EUV light. It seems to me that might be a technically better/cheaper pathway than how ASML's EUV machines work, only because of how hideously complex and Rube Goldberg those are
Canon's "nanoimprint lithography" is also making the rounds as a possible alternative.Even if they reach Samsung's tier, is enough to cause problems to ASML big time.
Currently, the NZ2C is best served on more mature nodes. Anything that uses SADP/SAQP larger than 40nm on metal pitches. As the current spec makes it about on-par with Nikon's NSR-S622D on throughput and NSR-S635E on everything else. Where it starts to replace current-gen EUV LELE and High-NA EUV is by 2027~2029.Canon's "nanoimprint lithography" is also making the rounds as a possible alternative.
Nanoimprint Lithography Aims to Take on EUV
Canon’s new chip-making system competes on cost, energy, and precisionspectrum.ieee.org
And that seems to be unchanged:For the record, as of the end of Q3 2024 their order backlog sits at €36 billion. (And let's see how much that changed since at the Q4 2024 earnings call on January 29th.)