Globalfoundries to use EUV lithography for sub-20nm production

i<>In a keynote address today at Semicon West, senior vice president of technology and research and development at Globalfoundries, revealed details of the company’s plans to drive Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography to high-volume production. The company intends to start using EUV commercially in 2014 – 2015 when it starts to produce chips using sub-20nm process technologies. The plan does not impact timeline for previously announced 20nm and 22nm process technologies.

Thanks to Globalfoundries’ collaboration with the so-called IBM’s fab club, the company can skip usage of pre-production manufacturing tools for and install the production EUV tools into Fab 12 sometime in 2012 in order to initiate design of new process technologies. A move seems to be quite risky, but with the support from IBM and other partners within the alliance, the company may not face many troubles.