Samsung was testing gas cluster beam (GCB) equipment supplied by fab equipment maker Tokyo Electron to improve its extreme ultraviolet (EUV) process, TheElec has learned.
The equipment, called Acrevia, is used to shape local areas of the wafer using ion beams.
Tokyo Electron previously said the equipment can be used to improve the line edge roughness and pattern defects in EUV processes.
Samsung expects the use of the kit to help it reduce costs in advanced nodes, sources said.
It will reduce stochastic errors in EUV processing, so less errors mean less cost, they said.
A Tokyo Electron spokesperson confirmed that its equipment was being tested by a customer for use in foundry.
Meanwhile, the EUV patterning market is dominated by Applied Materials, so Tokyo Electron’s new kit is a challenge to that.
