How 3nm Transistors & EUV Lithography Work
Etching 50 billion nanoscopic Gate-All-Around (GAAFET) transistors onto silicon using 13.5nm extreme ultraviolet plasma lasers.
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Step 11. Molten Tin Laser Plasma Generation
High-power CO2 laser strikes molten tin droplet at 50 kHz, producing 13.5nm EUV light.
A 200,000°C tin plasma radiates extreme ultraviolet photons in high vacuum.
Step 1 of 4How 3nm Transistors & EUV Lithography Work
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Transistors are microscopic electronic on/off switches. Modern phone chips pack over 50 billion of them into a piece of silicon smaller than your fingernail.
Key Takeaways
- ✓A transistor turns electric current on and off billions of times per second (1s and 0s).
- ✓Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) light prints nanometer-scale circuits using mirrors instead of glass lenses.
- ✓Gate-All-Around (GAAFET) wraps the electrical control gate around all 4 sides of the channel.
Billions of Switches on a Fingernail
Every app, game, and AI model is powered by billions of microscopic switches called transistors. If a transistor was the size of a marble, your smartphone processor would be the size of a whole continent!To print features smaller than a single strand of DNA (3 nanometers), chipmakers use EUV lithography machines that shoot molten tin droplets with high-power lasers 50,000 times per second to create extreme ultraviolet light.Interactive Challenge+25 XP