Imaging at ASML

A visit to ASML with a deep dive into diffraction and imaging:
0:00 Intro
3:14 How big big are chip patterns nowadays?
5:00 Arriving at ASML Veldhoven
5:50 Interview Sander Blok part 1
7:40 About diffraction and image formation
9:36 Fraunhofer (far field) interference / diffraction explained
11:15 Diffraction on photolithography masks
15:11 About critical dimension
17:27 Example of computational photolithography
19:23 Interview Sander Blok part 2
21:46 EUV is difficult...

by the way, the frequency of the tin droplets apparently is 50.000 not 15.000 per second.

The script with instructions to install it can be downloaded from github:

Third party images / video:
Source mask optimization:
If you cannot access the article, search for the title in google: " Source mask optimization using the covariance matrix adaptation evolution strategy"

Royalty free music used:
Road Trip - Slynk
Floating - Early Birds

All imagery inside the ASML manufacturing facilities is stock video material shown Courtesy of ASML and IBM.

Into viewing wave simulations? Nils Berglund has a ton of them:

Did I forget anyone? Please let me know and we will work it out.

[JorenVaes]

As a chip designer, I never stop having my mind blown when we get silicon back from the foundry. You slave for months over these chips, and you are used to seeing them the size of a massive screen, having to zoom in like crazy doing the connections of small signals, when zoomed out not even being able to see whole functional blocks like complex operational amplifiers or so on, let alone the huge individual transistors (huge with respect to the tiny transistors we use in digital circuits). And then you get silicon back, and that huge chip is suddenly so small in that wafer gel pack that if you were to sneeze, you would lose them all, and never find them again.

[YSoreil]

Alright these were the last trade secrets I needed to finish my DIY home EUV setup. I just have to find a nice value for k1 and I'm golden.

[Adrian-foto]

14:17 As a telco engineer working with signal analysis I had an heureka moment. Basically thinking in fourier domain and radio signals, it is enough to recreate transmission with carrier and a single side-band and here we had something similar with light source positioned at angle to transmit 0th and half of 1st interference pattern through the imaging system. Thank You for the great content =) and merry Christmas

[DrBlokmeister]

Something interesting on our lens that I realized after the recording is the huge size of our field. If we take the half pitch resolution as a single pixel (10nm), our field size is roughly 2, 6 million by around 0.1 million pixels, so if we make it into a camera, it would be a roughly 260 terapixel camera, give or take a factor of two.

[LucasRodmo]

Our species take rocks, inscribe them with light in a complicated patterned language, then, when electrified, they can think, perform tasks, and make miraculous things. Truly a magical time to be alive.

[Dogo.R]

This is a beautiful addition to the Asianometry content on Lithography. Really nice seeing visual representations of the things going on.

[JanM]

Worked for a year for a metrology system manufacturer, mostly phase shifting interferometry. Not only the production of these really small features is a challenge, but being able to visualize them and measuring their height was also incredibly difficult (at the required throughput)! The thin films mess up the interferometry signal, which threw off the existing algorithms to estimate the height. At a certain point the lateral dimensions of the features also started to become a challenge, as they diffracted the light used to visualize them. Everything's so cutting edge in this sector, it's awesome!

[BRUXXUS]

This video was a TREAT! ASML has always seemed like some ultra-secret black box of an organization. Very cool to see inside, meet people there, and get a deeper understanding of just how insane the tech they develop is.

[salmiakki]

This is the most informative channel I've come across on YouTube. Not only it's accessible, but is also rigorous enough and it doesn't shy away to show at least the easier part of the maths modelling the subject that you actually can learn something!

[Chriss]

While studying we went over some basics of euv lithography, but NEVER in such a high level of detail like you just provided.
Amazing to see behind the scenes how much this technology needs to account for.

[TheEvertw]

As a software developer, I am amazed that ASML is still pulling this off. About 25 years ago, there were projections that they would pretty soon need every SW developer in the country. That hasn't happened, but still ASML is turning out these ever more complex machines.

I have the greatest respect for ASML, it is without a doubt THE most technologically advanced company in the world, and a major driver in advancing the State of the Art for optics, mechanics, systems engineering, sensor & actuator tecnology, physics and SW. And electronics, obviously.

[NilsBerglund]

Nice one, Jeroen. And thanks for advertising my channel! (featuring some optical fibers today).

[Bunker]

It's nice to see the optical process described in terms of waves instead of rays. That made the strange looking mask and light source a lot easier to understand.

[lordofelectrons]

Your comparison of a 1 micron feature to 12 nanometer features is great! I laugh out loud so amazing that it's funny.

[roelvoort]

Just an marvelous presentation. Listening to two dutch men speaking english, listining as an dutch man and understanding it all. MIND BLOWN. :)

[DrDrift-rlcc]

10/10 video, this is so insightful and delightful for someone studying this in university

[rodrigomartindelcampo]

That moment in 18:10 is really next to a miracle, absolutely amazing we as a species can achieve this

[diegogmx]

this is great, definitely the best optics channel on youtube, and damn i would be sooo nice to take a look at that expecience center
really looking forward to the next videos on this
really to consider imaging as a consequence of the interference of the diffraction orders is just mindblowing yet makes things so much more intuitive once you incorporate it

[aether]

I for one would welcome all the details from the ASML visit, speaking as a physicist who studied photolithography and quantum optics. Thanks and godspeed!

[TOUTest]

I would love to see a longer version of your visit. Thank you for your channel. It help me alot to understand light.