SAN FRANCISCO – Intel Corp. has found a way to create a 10 nm process technology using immersion lithography. In addition, the processor giant is on track to start making chips in a 14 nm process technology before the end of next year, said an Intel fellow in a talk here.
The 10 nm process would debut in 2015 or later. It would require quadruple patterning for some mask layers but “it’s still economical,” said Mark Bohr, director of Intel’s technology and manufacturing group, speaking to EE Times after a talk at the
Intel Developer Forum here.
Bohr is not revealing any details of either Intel’s 14 or 10 nm process plans yet. His comments focused only on technical feasibility.
The company has long worked on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and recently agreed to invest $4.1 billion in ASML to drive it forward. “EUV is very important to us, and that’s we we invested in ASML, but we have multiple paths that we pursue such as immersion with multiple patterning,” Bohr said.
Intel expects to use at least double patterning in some layers of some chips at 14 nm. If immersion is used at 10 nm, more layers will require double patterning and some will even require quadruple patterning, he said.
At 14 nm, Bohr said, "the increased wafer costs [associated with double patterning] is still being offset by improved density, so our cost per transistor continues to go down with each generation on a very steady trend,” he said.
That trend would continue, he suggested, even if immersion is used at 10 nm. As of today, “EUV is later than I would like, and I can’t count on it for sure,” he said.
“We are probably the last company continuing to stay on a pace of having a new process technology every two years or so,” Bohr said in his talk.
Intel’s component and logic technology development groups in Oregon “cast a wide net,” exploring available options in processes, transistors, interconnects, memories and other technologies, “and not all of them work,” he said.
Separately, in an informal discussion after the talk, Bohr commented on Intel’s policy on making chips for other companies.
“It’s not our intention to be in the foundry business but we do have a small but growing foundry offering,” he said. Besides selling wafers, the work provides “a second-order benefit in getting input from other design teams on how they would like to see our process technology optimized,” he said.
Intel is considering many options including ones not on this slide Bohr showed.