Huawei confirms breakthrough in EUV lithography process optimization

Huawei has confirmed in a posting on its website reports about its breakthrough in making a light source component used in EUV lithography systems which are required for making high-end processors on sub-10 nm nodes.

The Chinese tech giant posted a video on its website to back claims about its EUV lithography breakthrough. It also claimed to have "entered the game" on its official website.

China tech news media MyDrivers quoted China's National Intellectual Properties Administration website information saying that Huawei Technology filed an application for a patent covering a EUV lithography process and its key components in mid-November. The patent application number is 202110524685X.

Huawei's application has not been approved yet. It is difficult to judge whether Huawei already has the ability to produce the entire EUV equipment.

Huawei said on its website the latest patent application shows the usage of EUV lithography technology to improve the manufacturing of integrated circuits and chipsets.

"Together, this process will form an interference pattern that will keep on changing with new light rays. Consequently, this will equalize the light exposure and will solve the un-uniform light issues that often occur in chip development," according to Huawei's website description.

Alongside uniform light rays, this mechanism will ease the creation and formation of the nano-particles that are assembled in the integrated circuits or the micro-chipsets.

"Further, lithography mainly performs the transfer, processing, and creation of micro-nano graphics. It also verifies the total elements equipped in a chipset and checks the appropriate size and other details in the circuits," according to Huawei.

A UDN report said in addition to Huawei, local research institutions in China, such as Tsinghua, have also put forward EUV lithography-related technologies to overcome the light source technology barriers, mastering new light sources that can be used for EUV lithography. The Chinese Academy of Sciences also mastered the mirror system technology.

Despite the breakthrough in EUV light source technology, the EUV machine is not easy to manufacture, because there are more than 100,000 components in a EUV machine, requiring the collaboration of a huge supply chain, which is a major obstacle for any country trying to build the equipment from scratch without getting help from other component sources.

Huawei has been quietly developing a domestic semiconductor ecosystem over the past few years trying to counter the US tech export sanctions that have kept it from accessing advanced chips. It has invested in a wide range of companies in the semiconductor supply chain, starting from EDA, equipment, and materials, to foundry, testing, and packaging.

The technology for which Huawei is applying for a patent is trying to solve the problem of uneven light intensity of the light source used in the EUV lithography machine. According to the disclosed information, the patent application provides a reflector, a lithography device, and a control method thereof, which relates to the field of optics and can solve the problem that coherent light cannot be homogenized due to the formation of a fixed interference pattern and is optimized on the basis of the lithography device for extreme ultraviolet light, thus achieving the purpose of homogenization.

The UDN report said while Huawei is developing EUV lithography, it is also developing technologies that "bypass" lithography. For example, it is bypassing the US monopoly technology of silicon wafers in favor of optoelectronic wafers and other practices.