Feb. 27, 2008 - Presenting at the SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium, Philips Extreme UV and XTREME Technologies offered proof-of-principle experiment results showing their gas-discharge plasma source can be scaled to 100kHz operation frequency, which translates to a record 500W EUV source power -- more than enough to meet requirements for high-volume semiconductor manufacturing.

"The experiments demonstrate that our discharge based source can be scaled to deliver far more EUV power than competing solutions that are based on laser plasma," said Marc Corthout, GM of Philips Extreme UV, in a statement.

Building on cooperative EUV source work since 2007, the companies say they used an EUV source similar to discharge lamps that burns a plasma between two electrodes. The breakthrough, they say, is based on a concept whereby the electrodes are extended and rotate -- a process that allows for excessive heat load during high-power operation to be "easily removed."