Blacklight technology is ready to ‘save’ the Law of … – Digital Look

You may have heard of Moore’s Law, created by the founder of Intel, which states that, in general, the processors need to be twice as good every two years. The standard dictated the pace of innovation in the chip industry, but finally began to show signs of exhaustion this year, when Intel announced the adoption of a new three-step production model instead of only two.

processor production technology is reaching its limits, but there are still some proposals that could allow maintenance of Moore’s Law. One such tool just entered the testing phase by large companies, and is called lithography with extreme ultraviolet (EUV). The idea is that it is ready for use on a large scale since 2018.

How the technique works? Lithography works much like the old-fashioned photograph. Light is projected through a mask with patterns on a surface having light sensitive substances. The smaller the wavelength of the light, the greater is the possible resolution of patterns. The current technology industry has led to the 193 nanometers wavelength, the limit. To keep growing, it would be necessary to use multiple standard steps for each layer in a chip, which would make it too complex to its production. The use of extreme ultraviolet light alleviates the situation, with a shorter wavelength.

In 2011, Intel decided to invest heavily in this area. The company invested $ 4 billion in a Dutch company called ASML, which is finally yielding fruit. Recently, the team announced that managed to dribble the latest and greatest technological barrier to EUV, which were sources of very weak light, which would mean a longer exposure of photosensitive substances. As we know the maximum capitalist: time is money

With technological advancement, it was possible to increase the power of the light source in five times, jumping from 40 Watts last year to 200 Watts this year, which. fold to 400 pellets production rate per day to 800. it’s still far from the speed of the current technology, which is able to produce 3000 tablets, but the expectation is that the pace of technology used currently fall as the technical limits are obstacles accumulating, making the technique more viable VDU.

Via MIT Technology Review