A new chipmaking breakthrough aims to help the U.S. regain its leadership in chip production.

Before the development of EUV lithography, chipmakers used Deep Ultraviolet (DUV) lithography, which utilized a longer 193 nm wavelength. DUV systems enabled the manufacturing of chips with process nodes as small as 10nm, while EUV has been used for Integrated Circuits (ICs) at 7nm, 5nm, 3nm, and 2nm nodes. Smaller process node numbers correspond to smaller transistor sizes, allowing for a greater number of transistors on a chip. An increased transistor count in an IC translates to enhanced power and energy efficiency.

Currently, Low-NA EUV machines are priced between $150 million and $200 million. Future cutting-edge chip production will necessitate the use of High-NA EUV machines, which cost $350 million to $380 million. The High-NA EUV has a Numerical Aperture of .55, compared to .33 for the Low-NA version. This allows the High-NA machine to print finer features with greater resolution.

Without High-NA EUV machines, manufacturers would need to employ multi-patterning, a technique that divides designs into multiple patterns that are printed repeatedly. This can result in lower yields due to the need for precise alignment before each exposure.

ASML, a Dutch company, is the sole manufacturer of EUV machines. Adhering to U.S. sanctions, ASML has not supplied EUV lithography to China. While this may impede China's ability to produce advanced chips, Substrate, an American startup, has created X-ray Lithography (XRL) technology using a particle acceleration-based light source.

This technology accelerates subatomic particles (protons, electrons, and ions) to near the speed of light using particle accelerators. Substrate aims to achieve resolutions comparable to ASML's 2nm-class process. The company claims its products will be more cost-effective and offer improved resolutions before 2030.

Substrate states that its accelerators generate beams that produce light billions of times brighter than the sun, which is then directed into its lithography tools. These tools employ innovative optical and high-speed mechanical systems to create the fine features required for advanced chips. Substrate believes its inventions will extend Moore's Law for years to come, while current methods face limitations.

Moore's Law, proposed by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, observes that transistor density on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years. Substrate suggests its X-ray Lithography (XRL) will be suitable for future process nodes and more intricate designs.

Rock's law states that the cost of building a leading-edge semiconductor fabrication facility doubles every four years. For instance, the cost of such a facility has risen from $5 billion in the early 2010s to around $25 billion today.

Substrate projects that by 2030, wafers will cost $100,000 each, compared to the current $30,000 for 2nm wafers, and fabs will cost over $50 billion. Substrate believes that in this environment, "only the largest companies will be able to afford to build products that leverage leading-edge silicon" and that "the economics of this scaling are more daunting than the physics."

Substrate aims to address this issue. The company asserts it has a "pathway" to reduce the cost of manufacturing advanced chips. By the end of the decade, Substrate intends to produce wafers that cost end-users closer to $10,000 than $100,000. Substrate also states its technology will help in "Returning the United States to dominance in semiconductor production."