ASML and Carl Zeiss - Two Companies, one business

just an hour's drive from stuttgart in the swabian forest lies oberkochen this quiet provincial town in the south of germany is home to carl zeiss the company that's responsible for setting new standards in the production of lenses and optics carl zeiss is the exclusive partner of asml as lenses play an important role in the semiconductor lithography machines a partnership that has led to a seismic shift in lithography technology 10 years ago we had the feeling that lithography as we knew it would run out of steam therefore we had to come up with a new solution as early as 2005 and if you were lucky we could dredge it to 2010 but this would require not an evolution but a revolution in technology hermann gerlinger is president and ceo of carl zeiss smt in oberkochen he's been with the company for 25 years and has fostered the strategic relationship with asml carl size provides asml with lenses that project the sharpest possible image of tiny electronic circuits on a silicon wafer in today's lithography machines the contrast of the image needs to be within 10 silicon atoms we knew that we would need an accuracy of only a few single atoms 10 years from now consumers and businesses need more powerful and yet affordable computing power which means that the transistors on the chip need to become smaller every year and we knew we cannot get to the accuracy of only a few single atoms with the lenses of today or in fact any lens at all we needed a revolution that revolution has come with a new light source with a much shorter wavelength than the one currently used you can compare with this let's take a thick marker and write my name in big letters that is what today lithography machines are doing if you try to shrink the size of my name which i do now with the big marker writing my name small the readability disappear only when i go to new technology in this particular case the small marker tip i can scale down the writing of my letter to smaller size maintaining readability this is the basic principle of the new technology we are pursuing martin vandenbrink is responsible for products and technology at asml he visits carl zeiss many times a year to discuss technology and product development the bad thing of the new lotographic technology it uses light which is absorbed by most materials like the glasses of which lenses are made as well as the air in between the lenses after 25 years developing bigger and better lenses asml and karl seis now needed to develop a new optical system that would not absorb the energy they figured that if they removed all the air and used mirrors instead of lenses it might just work now kyle size needed to prove it could actually make these mirrors the mirrors are so incredibly smooth if you would compare it for example with a map of germany over a length of one thousand kilometers you would stumble over an obstacle of about one millimeter it took carl size more than ten years and tens of millions of euros to develop the new optical system that's currently used in two test machines actual chips won't be produced for mass consumption before 2012. indeed it's a long bet on the future this new technology is approved for the close cooperation between asml and call zeiss it's no ordinary partnership we call it two companies one business only when you completely honest and transparent over the plans and strategy you can ask your suppliers to make the necessary investment required for realization of the innovation this is our basic principle in our relationship with our supply base asml's unique supply chain has been key to its ability to innovate more quickly than the competition thanks to partners like carl zeiss here in ogerkochen consumers can expect their gadgets to become smarter cheaper and more energy efficient for at least another decade

Channel: jeannotdriedonkx

Views: 120,533

Keywords: ASML, Carl Zeiss, Lens, Lithography, semiconductor industry, chips, IC, computer, cooperation, EUV, nano technology

Id: WbukKUi3vHw

Length: 4min 28sec (268 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 22 2009