Intel's Process Roadmap to 2025: with 4nm, 3nm, 20A and 18A?!
by Dr. Ian Cutress on July 26, 2021 5:00 PM ESTSidebar on Intel EUV
In all of these announcements, one thing to highlight is Intel mentioning its relationship with ASML, the sole company that manufactures the EUV machines powering production of leading edge semiconductor manufacturing.
ASML Wilton
ASML is a unique company in that it is the only one that can produce these machines, because the technology behind them is often tied up with its partners and research, but also because all the major silicon manufacturers are heavily invested in ASML. For any other company to compete against ASML would require building a separate network of expertise, a decade of innovation and design, and a lot of capital. None of the major silicon vendors want to disturb this balance and go off on their own, lest it shuts them out of the latest manufacturing technology, and no research fund sees competing against the embedded norm as a viable opportunity. This means that anyone wanting EUV specialist technology has to go to ASML.
In 2012, it was reported that Intel, Samsung, and TSMC all invested in ASML. This was, at the time, to jumpstart EUV development along with migrating from 300mm wafers to 450mm wafers. While we haven’t moved to 450mm wafers yet (and there are doubts we will any time in the next decade), EUV is now here. Intel’s 2012 investment of $2.1 billion gave them a 10% stake in ASML, with Intel stating that it would continue investing up to a 25% stack. Those stakes are now below the 5% reporting threshold, but all three of the major foundry customers are still big owners, especially as ASML’s market cap has risen from $24 Billion in 2012 to $268 Billion in 2021 (surpassing Intel).
As major investors but also ASML’s customers, the race has been on for these foundries to acquire enough EUV machines to meet demand. TSMC reported in August 2020 that it has 50% of all EUV machines manufactured at ASML for its leading edge processes. Intel is a little behind, especially as none of Intel’s products in the market yet use any EUV. EUV will only intercept Intel’s portfolio with its new Intel 4 process, where it will be used extensively, mostly on the BEOL. But Intel still has to order machines when they need them, especially as there are reports that ASML currently has backorders of 50 EUV machines. In 2021, ASML is expected to manufacture around 45-50 machines, and 50-60 in 2022. The exact number of machines Intel has right now, or has ordered from ASML, is unknown. It is expected that each one has a ~$150m price tag, and can take 4-6 months to install.
With all that being said, Intel’s discussion point today is that it will be the lead customer for ASML’s next generation EUV technology known as High-NA EUV. NA in this context relates to the ‘numerical aperture’ of the EUV machine, or to put simply, how wide you can make the EUV beam inside the machine before it hits the wafer. The wider the beam before you hit the wafer, the more intense it can be when it hits the wafer, which increases how accurately the lines are printed. Normally in lithography to get better printed lines, we move from single patterning to double patterning (or quad patterning) to get that effect, which decreases yield. The move to High-NA would mean that the ecosystem can stay on single patterning for longer, which some have quoted as allowing the industry to ‘stay aligned with Moore’s Law longer’.
| ASML's EUV Shipments | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |||||||||||||||
| Actual | 2 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 14 | 8 | 7 | 9 | - | - | ||
| Target (Total) | - | - | - | 20 (18) | 30 (26) | 35 (33) | 45-50 | ||||||||||||||
| 2018 and beyond is split per quarter for actual shipped numbers Data taken from ASML's Financial Reports |
|||||||||||||||||||||
Current EUV systems are NA 0.33, while the new systems are NA 0.55. ASML’s latest update suggests that it expects customers to be using High-NA for production in 2025/2026, which means that Intel is likely going to be getting the first machine (ASML NXE:5000 we think) in mid-2024. Exactly how many High-NA machines ASML intends to produce in that time frame is unknown, as if they flood the market, having the first won’t be a big win. However if there is a slow High-NA ramp, it will be up to Intel to capitalize on its advantage.
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mode_13h - Thursday, August 12, 2021 - link
> Citation needed.Do you *really* need me to cite every proletariat uprising?
GeoffreyA - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
"Humans mainly define truth on the basis of convenience."That's true. However, there is an absolute (or relative) truth out there in the nature of things, and it's our job to find or draw nearer to it.
mode_13h - Sunday, August 1, 2021 - link
> there is an absolute (or relative) truth out there in the nature of things,> and it's our job to find or draw nearer to it.
The scientific method is a powerful technique for doing that. Probably one of humanity's greatest conceptual achievements.
GeoffreyA - Sunday, August 1, 2021 - link
Absolutely. Along with mathematics. Time and time again, the mathematician discovers some new region of maths, and decades later the physicists find it's just the thing they needed.Oxford Guy - Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - link
The scientific method is not political.So... apples and oranges fallacy once again.
mode_13h - Thursday, August 12, 2021 - link
> So... apples and oranges fallacy once again.When someone diminishes the value and even the existence of truth, a rebuke of some form is to be expected. And politics is no cover for being untruthful.
BTW, your post was actually countered by @GeoffreyA. Mine was a reply to his. You're losing the plot. Or maybe we're beyond that point and you're just needling me out of sheer spite.
Spunjji - Thursday, July 29, 2021 - link
If you have to talk in such general terms about the media that you're not even able to refer to the specific acts a "mainstream" news organisation took part in that somehow persuaded you to distrust *all of them equally*, it's a good indicator that you're repeating talking points rather than saying anything of value.Fox News is "MSM", for the record. Same with the Daily Mail in the UK - outsells any other paper, most popular website. Both are hyper-partisan, both mainstream. Then you have these swirling masses of pseudo-news organisations that harp on relentlessly about the MSM - The Daily Caller, GB News, Rebel Media, etc. - that exist entirely to push propaganda. Their not being "mainstream" doesn't make their perspectives more valid. Same goes for partisan dickholes with their own pages like Drudge and Guido.
No media source is universally reliable. Some do at least have standards, even if they don't always hew to them.
Weird that you just segued to "the government" for no reason. Which government, where? 🤷♂️
GeoffreyA - Friday, July 30, 2021 - link
Well said.JoeDuarte - Monday, August 9, 2021 - link
You seem to conflate "partisan" with conservative, which broadcasts an obvious bias and double standard.Leftist websites like the Guardian, NYT, and Washington Post are extremely unreliable because they're partisan leftists, with no apparent deeper commitment to truth or professional journalism. We've found some amazing patterns of false statements in their work, especially when they couch it as "fact checking", which was unexpected. We haven't yet found comparable patterns at Fox News, though their story selection on their homepage is clearly biased (story selection is a different bias measure entirely, and leftist websitre score high on that form of bias as well – try finding coverage of the Biden Administration flagging posts or topics for censorship for Facebook at any of the leftist websites...)
Daily Caller might have the only credible fact-checking operation in the US at the moment. They score much higher than anyone else I've seen, in the US at least.
mode_13h - Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - link
> Leftist websites like the Guardian, NYT, and Washington PostIt's funny how those who do the most to discredit quality journalism also happen to be the ones who stand the most to gain by having no critical oversight of their actions within office.
Right-wingers decry anyone as leftist who doesn't hew to their ideology. Sorry, that's not how it works.
> try finding coverage of the Biden Administration flagging posts
Maybe because there's no substance to it? Just because they don't pick up whatever stories right-wing media gins up doesn't mean they're leftist.