The last day of this symposium always seems to go by in a bit of a fog. After four days of 7 am to 10 pm (or later) nonstop lithography (and beer), the adrenaline begins to wear off. I was able to muster sufficient focus in the morning, but by lunch on Thursday I was done. To all those worthy lithographers who presented no doubt important work on Thursday afternoon, I am sorry. Next year I will try to pace myself better (or maybe the conference gods will punish me by giving me a late-Thursday speaking spot).

Thursday began with the traditional ASML review of progress on their latest EUV platform. Rudy Peeters gave the 8:00 am talk and it is clear that he has been reading my blog. He presented a modified version of a slide on a MOPA prepulse source 6 hour stability test that David Brandt presented on Tuesday, but instead of saying “printed five wafers with 99.9% yield” the slide carefully explained the simulated nature of the test and the meaning of the results. The unitless y-axis of the plot was now replaced by a relative scale (% dose error) with real numbers, though nowhere did he actually mention the power of the source (was it 10W? 20W? 30W?) and the data occupied an incredibly small fraction of the +/-4% y-axis range so that nothing more than a rough appreciation for the results could be gained.

But enough on graphs that are not intended to inform. On many fronts there was steady progress reported on the NXE:3300 platform. Jan Mulkens’ talk on mix-and-match overlay between EUV and 193i tools was especially impressive. There is still much uncertainty on whether an EUV pellicle will ever be practical, but recent progress has been good. But meaningful progress remains limited by the failure to meet each year’s updated source power roadmap. Despite obvious delays in rolling out a 30W MOPA prepulse source for NXE:3300s in the field, Rudy Peeters ended his talk with his prediction: “We’ll show 250W next year.” I look forward to seeing that milestone met, but will be more impressed when customers are shooting wafers with a 250W source.

And so another SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium ends. I go home to Austin a little wiser and a little wearier. I was glad to meet so many young, eager scientists and engineers this year, soaking up knowledge and experience, finding sparks and catching fire. The future belongs to you.