Fab 8's chip success ripples far away
Published 2:01 pm, Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Times Union business reporter Larry Rulison takes a clean room tour at GlobalFoundries on Friday, Feb. 2, 2018, in Malta, N.Y. (GlobalFoundries)
Times Union business reporter Larry Rulison takes a clean room tour at GlobalFoundries on Friday, Feb. 2, 2018, in Malta, N.Y. (GlobalFoundries)
Malta
As GlobalFoundries starts making next-generation computer chips using cutting-edge 7 nanometer features at its Fab 8 computer chip factory in Malta, the company is getting ready to turbo-charge its manufacturing line using a new technology.
It's called extreme ultraviolet lithography, and GlobalFoundries is buying four of the machines, which print chip designs onto silicon wafers, from a Dutch company called ASML.
The price tag: $200 million for each machine.
And while final assembly of the EUV machines is done in the Netherlands, a large parts of the machines are made in Wilton, Conn., about a two-and-a-half hour drive from Albany.
Due to the integral role that the ASML machines will play at Fab 8 going forward — EUV is the only solution so far that the industry has discovered that can add more and more transistors on a chip, making them faster and cheaper — ASML recently invited a Times Union reporter to its 300,000-square-foot Wilton facility to see how the machines are made.
And ASML didn't just build its Wilton facility recently to serve companies like GlobalFoundries. The factory has been located on Route 7 in Wilton, which is just south of Danbury, since the 1970s.
It began first selling chip-making equipment to the Air Force and then IBM and other chip makers.
"Our history goes way back at this site," said Bill Amalfitano, the general manager of the Wilton site. "It started with a government contract."
Just like at Fab 8, visitors must "gown up" in polyester coverall bunny suits, including hoods and special shoes, in order keep the manufacturing line from becoming contaminated.
Among the components that are made at the Wilton plant are so-called reticle handlers that introduce the highly expensive and fragile glass "masks" that contain the chip designs being printed onto silicon wafers using the light source.
Unlike Fab 8, where most of the employees are outside the cleanroom because the chip making process is so automated, there are many workers out on the ASML clean room floor. That's because the process that goes into making the lithography machines is extremely time consuming and labor intensive.
A total of 1,222 people work at the factory, both in manufacturing and engineering roles, with shifts running around the clock, seven days a week. Research and development is done side-by-side with the manufacturing process, allowing for quick feedback on advancing and perfecting new technologies.
The finished modules, which make up about a third of the final product, are shipped to ASML's headquarters and manufacturing facility in the town of Veldhoven in the Netherlands. There, the large machines undergo final assembly before being shipped back to the United States, or to semiconductor fabrication plants in Asia or Europe.
ASML has shipped 22 of the EUV machines so far over the past five years, but the order backlog now is already up to 28 machines, meaning the company is getting ready to drastically ramp up production of the machines in the coming year.
ASML has announced a $100 million, 45,000-square-foot expansion at the Wilton site that will add 524 jobs. Connecticut has promised up to $20 million in grants and tax breaks to support the project.
Amalfitano says the expansion into EUV has been one of the most exciting times of his career. The Wilton site was originally home to Perkin-Elmer, a defense contractor that originally developed the lithography technology for the Air Force. In the 1990s, the Wilton plant was sold to a partnership between Silicon Valley Group and IBM. ASML acquired it in 2001.
"It's really exciting to see the growth," Amalfitano said. "The technology is exciting to everyone who works here, and it's great to recognize the impact that you have on everybody's lives. Without this capability, how do you keep furthering Moore's Law?"
The Wilton plant is not just expanding outward but also upward. The EUV machines, 26 feet tall and 13 feet long, are much larger and heavier than the standard lithography machines that ASML makes, requiring more space and bigger bays to get the completed machines out the door.
It's difficult to generate the light source for EUV machines. Those components are made in the Netherlands, but ASML has come up with a solution that works.
"It's pretty complicated physics," Gary Patton, the chief technology officer at GlobalFoundries, recently explained as part of a tour of Fab 8 that included the company showing off its new EUV machines being installed. "They take molten tin, they drop it in the tool, then they zap it with a laser to flatten the droplet. They then zap it again with a laser to generate the EUV light. Tin goes flying all over the place, and it has to be collected and removed from the device. Then the EUV light bounces all over a bunch of mirrors and then onto the wafer, and every time it bounces, you lose energy. The trick is generating enough light."
The EUV machines also have a much lower tolerance for any contamination, requiring added clean room features and large baths to clean the tools that workers use to put the machines together.
"We're putting a huge stake in the ground," Amalfitano said. "When we grow like this, this isn't like building an office building. We are expanding a very customized type of manufacturing. You can see it."
Although EUV lithography hasn't been used yet in commercial chip production, GlobalFoundries and others are expecting to start using it soon. GlobalFoundries is planning to introduce it sometime soon after launching its 7 nanometer chip process, where Patton expects it will greatly reduce costs by requiring fewer steps during the lithography process using the current technology.
"EUV will be here," Patton said. "We are betting big on it."