The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on a petawatt-class thulium laser that is said to be 10 times more efficient than the CO2 lasers used in EUV tools and could replace CO2 lasers in lithography systems many years down the road.
The LLNL-led initiative will evaluate the Big Aperture Thulium (BAT) laser technology to enhance EUV source efficiency by approximately tenfold compared to the current industry-standard CO2 lasers. This advancement could pave the way for a new generation of 'beyond EUV' lithography systems that produce chips quicker and with less power. Of course, implementing BAT technologies into semiconductor production will require significant infrastructure changes, so it remains to be seen how long it will take to come to fruition; the current EUV systems were developed over the course of decades.
