Corning is primarily known for its ruggedized glasses for smartphones and is barely known in the semiconductor industry. Yet, its contribution to the production of chips using leading-edge technologies is rather huge. To that end, the company is eligible to get money from the CHIPS and Science Act fund. This week, Corning and the U.S. Department of Commerce inked a preliminary agreement under which Corning is set to get $32 million.
Corning makes various glass materials to build photomasks, such as high-purity fused silica, ultra-low expansion (ULE), and extreme ULE glass. A major advantage of ULE and Extreme ULE materials is their exceptionally low thermal expansion to ensure maximum consistency in harsh EUV environments (which are getting harsher as EUV tools gain more powerful light sources to increase performance) and exceptional uniformity to reduce photomask ‘waviness’ to minimize circuit variability (i.e., lower performance and power variability).
