For several years now, both technical and commercialization challenges for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) have been much reported. By 2000, a handful of EUVL R&D efforts had been established at various locations in Europe, Japan and the United States; by late 2002, several solid efforts to enable key infrastructure worldwide were under way. However, there was no entity that addressed the coordination of EUVL infrastructural issues among the different geographic regions. In autumn 2003, the International EUV Initiative (IEUVI)[1] was launched to further the coordination of collaborative efforts among leading EUVL R&D consortia and to address infrastructural issues for commercialization. It built on an earlier coordination effort between Japan’s only EUVL R&D entity ASET[2] and the U.S. organization EUV LLC[3] by expanding membership to CEA/LETI[4] of France, SEMATECH[5] of the U.S. and several others who joined as members since then. The IEUVI coordinates R&D activities by identifying opportunities for inter-regional benchmarking and collaboration. It primarily addresses EUVL infrastructural issues, as a result of collecting technical inputs from its Technical Working Groups (TWGs), and identifies possible showstoppers for commercialization. The initiative meets three times annually. Activities are posted at http://www.ieuvi.org.

Please login below to access the full text of this paper. If you are not currently an online member or subscriber sign-up today, it's free. For online membership, click here.