A peak inside Samsung’s EUV-made DRAM chips

Last year, Samsung announced that it expected to introduce EUV lithography in high-volume production of DRAM chips in 2021. Now, the first ones have surfaced in commercial products. According to IP consulting and technical analysis firm Techinsights, a 12 GB LPDDR5 memory chip used in the Samsung Galaxy S21 5G smartphone series contains one EUV layer. After prying the chip open and comparing it to a similar IC that was manufactured using immersion lithography only, employing EUV improves line edge roughness and might reduce bridge/short defects, Techinsights notes.