Samsung produces dram using euv

Samsung reports that it has shipped the first million DDR4 modules made using EUV chip machines. The manufacturer expects to make DDR5 with EUV, or extreme ultra violet, on a large scale next year.

Samsung still uses the EUV machines for the production of its first generation 10nm-class DDR4 memory. The company refers to this generation with the designation D1x. Samsung is currently in the process of integrating EUV into the production of its fourth-generation 10mn-class Dram, or D1a. This is an improved production process that leads to more economical and higher performing memory.

The development of D1a should lead to large-scale production of ddr5 and lpddr5 with euv next year. According to the manufacturer, this doubles the productivity compared to D1x. It is not known how many chip layers Samsung makes with euv. The company does report that EUV is ‘fully deployed’ in DDR5 production. In the second half of this year, Samsung will commission a second semiconductor production line in South Korea to produce the new dram generation. Samsung is the first manufacturer to use euv machines in dram production. EUV has been used for some critical chip layers for some time in the production of processors.

Traditional immersion lithography uses light with a wavelength of 193nm. In this method, manufacturers have to perform time-consuming multi-patterning steps with their machines to apply increasingly smaller chip structures to wafers. Euv machines use a smaller wavelength of 13.5nm for the exposure step, which means that smaller structures can be applied more accurately and faster.