5-minute read - by Kate Brunton, April 20, 2023
Chips are in demand – especially chips made using ‘dry’ DUV lithography equipment. How is innovation in this more mature sector helping to drive advances in society, and how is ASML helping chipmakers to stay on top of the demand for chips?
Microchips are everywhere and there are many different types. Every electronic device or system contains at least one chip, but it can be many more – a modern car, for example, can have over a thousand. And chips are also in less obvious places, such as your bank card.
Chips vary in complexity, depending on the task they need to fulfil. The simplest types of chips can be made with more mature lithography technology, whereas manufacturers of the most complex chips need the latest EUV lithography systems to produce them.
Loading component...
Memory chips store information. ‘Volatile’ Memory chips, such as DRAM, are the ‘working memory’ chips that save data only while the device’s power is turned on, whereas ‘non-volatile’ Memory chips such as NAND Flash save data even after the device is turned off.
ASICs are simple, single-purpose chips used for performing repetitive processing routines such as scanning a barcode. And finally, an SoC is essentially an integrator chip. It’s a relatively new type of chip that combines many chips and circuits in a single chip and may integrate things such as graphics, audio, camera, video and Wi-Fi.
What’s so special about 'simpler' chips?
Semiconductor technology has evolved a lot since the microchip was first invented in the late 1950s. As time progressed, manufacturers were able to create increasingly powerful chips by shrinking the size of the printed circuitry so as to fit more transistors on a chip. Over the years, ASML has developed lithography machines that can print smaller and smaller features by using shorter light wavelengths and increasing the numerical aperture of the machines’ optics.
