News › Zeiss • ZEISS, TRUMPF and Fraun­ho­fer rese­arch team awarded the Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis 2020 for the deve­lo­p­ment of EUV lithography

• EUV litho­gra­phy enables chips for state-of-the-art smart­phones and auto­ma­ted driving
• World-lea­ding manu­fac­tu­ring tech­no­logy streng­thens Ger­man-Euro­pean posi­tion in glo­bal semi­con­duc­tor business

The Ger­man Fede­ral Pre­si­dent Frank-Wal­ter Stein­meier announ­ced the win­ners of the Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis 2020 (Ger­man Future Prize 2020) in a cerem­ony in Ber­lin today. The Fede­ral Pre­si­dent hono­red the team made up of Dr. Peter Kürz from the ZEISS Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy (SMT) seg­ment, Dr. Michael Kös­ters from TRUMPF Laser­sys­tems for Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring, and Dr. Ser­giy Yulin from the Fraun­ho­fer Insti­tute for Applied Optics and Pre­cis­ion Engi­nee­ring (IOF) in Jena, besto­wing on them his tech­no­logy and inno­va­tion award for their pro­ject titled »EUV Litho­gra­phy – New Light for the Digi­tal Age«.

Suc­cessful mar­ket launch crea­tes jobs

The win­ning team made a signi­fi­cant con­tri­bu­tion to deve­lo­ping EUV tech­no­logy and pre­pa­ring it for indus­trial series pro­duc­tion. The result? A future-proof tech­no­logy backed by more than 2,000 patents which forms the basis for the digi­ta­liza­tion of our daily lives and enables appli­ca­ti­ons such as auto­ma­ted dri­ving, 5G, Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and other future inno­va­tions. Thanks to EUV, over 3,300 high-tech jobs have been crea­ted at ZEISS and TRUMPF to date and an annual tur­no­ver of more than one bil­lion euros – with an upward trend – was gene­ra­ted in 2019.

Hig­her-per­for­mance and more energy-effi­ci­ent and cost-effec­tive microchips

The Dutch com­pany ASML is the world’s only EUV litho­gra­phy machine manu­fac­tu­rer. As an inte­gra­tor, the com­pany desi­gned the over­all sys­tem archi­tec­ture and the EUV source in par­ti­cu­lar. The high-power laser from TRUMPF for the EUV light source and the opti­cal sys­tem from ZEISS are key com­pon­ents of these machi­nes. EUV stands for »extreme ultra­vio­let« light, i.e. light with an extre­mely short wave­length. This unri­val­led key tech­no­logy can be used to pro­duce signi­fi­cantly hig­her-per­for­mance and more energy-effi­ci­ent and cost-effec­tive micro­chips throug­hout in this decade and the next. Effec­tive digi­ta­liza­tion requi­res a con­tin­ued and rapid increase in com­pu­ting power. Today’s smart­phones are a mil­lion times more powerful than the com­pu­ter used during the first Moon landing in 1969. This is made pos­si­ble by a micro­chip that is smal­ler than a fin­ger­tip, but which has the capa­city to accom­mo­date more than fif­teen bil­lion transistors.

The manu­fac­tu­ring pro­cess for the latest chip gene­ra­ti­ons is based on the use of EUV light, pushing the limits of what is tech­no­lo­gi­cally fea­si­ble. From the light source and the opti­cal sys­tem in a vacuum through the sur­face coa­ting of the mir­rors used in the pro­cess – prac­ti­cally the entire expo­sure tech­no­logy had to be deve­lo­ped from scratch.

EUV litho­gra­phy – a Ger­man-Euro­pean suc­cess story

»Heart­felt con­gra­tu­la­ti­ons to our win­ning team, repre­sen­ting thou­sands of EUV deve­lo­pers. We and our part­ners are very plea­sed to receive this award from the Ger­man Fede­ral Pre­si­dent, which reco­gni­zes an enorm­ously labor-inten­sive deve­lo­p­ment effort and its trans­la­tion into a tech­no­logy that is domi­na­ting the glo­bal mar­ket,« says Dr. Mar­kus Weber, ZEISS Group Exe­cu­tive Board mem­ber and head of the Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy seg­ment. »ZEISS stands for opti­cal excel­lence and pre­cis­ion. This has always been a key fac­tor in chip pro­duc­tion. As a breakth­rough inno­va­tion, EUV tech­no­logy con­ti­nues to enable major advan­ces in digi­tiza­tion in busi­ness and society. We are proud to con­tri­bute to this tog­e­ther with our stra­te­gic part­ners ASML, TRUMPF and Fraunhofer«.

TRUMPF Vice Chair­man of the Group Manage­ment Board and Chief Tech­no­logy Offi­cer Peter Leib­in­ger: »We are very plea­sed that Dr. Michael Kös­ters, Dr. Peter Kürz and Dr. Ser­giy Yulin from TRUMPF, ZEISS and the Fraun­ho­fer IOF have won the Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis 2020. By com­bi­ning inven­ti­ve­ness, an under­stan­ding of tech­no­logy, per­se­ver­ance and good team­work, they are a per­fect exam­ple of how future tech­no­lo­gies can be deve­lo­ped to indus­trial matu­rity through strong part­ner­ships. The award shows us once again that a strong indus­try and an out­stan­ding rese­arch land­scape play a cru­cial role in mee­ting the chal­lenges of this cen­tury. The mam­moth EUV litho­gra­phy pro­ject is also crea­ting jobs during the Corona year while addi­tio­nally ensu­ring that Europe plays a pio­nee­ring role in the pro­duc­tion of state-of-the-art microchips«.

With the world’s stron­gest pul­sed indus­trial laser, TRUMPF sup­plies a key com­po­nent for the expo­sure of the most modern micro­chips used in every modern smart­phone. There is no eco­no­mical alter­na­tive to this laser for gene­ra­ting the light requi­red for EUV lithography.

The qua­lity and form of the illu­mi­na­tion sys­tem and the reso­lu­tion power of the pro­jec­tion optics from ZEISS deter­mine how small the struc­tures on micro­chips can be. The mir­rors used in the opti­cal sys­tem the­r­e­fore con­tain signi­fi­cant inno­va­tions. Since even the smal­lest irre­gu­la­ri­ties lead to ima­ging errors, the world’s »most pre­cise« mir­ror was deve­lo­ped for EUV litho­gra­phy. Fraun­ho­fer was an important rese­arch part­ner in the sophisti­ca­ted coa­ting tech­no­logy for the large-scale mirrors.

»We con­gra­tu­late the rese­ar­chers from ZEISS, TRUMPF and the Fraun­ho­fer IOF on this great award for their excel­lent work. In EUV litho­gra­phy, they have deve­lo­ped a tech­no­logy that will pro­vide a digi­ta­liza­tion push glo­bally and by so doing also lays the foun­da­tion for fur­ther inno­va­tions,« says Prof. Rei­mund Neu­ge­bauer, Pre­si­dent of the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft. »Fraun­ho­fer sci­en­tists played a major role in the deve­lo­p­ment of the first EUV mir­rors and beam sources in the almost three deca­des of rese­arch. The fact that EUV litho­gra­phy is now being applied is also thanks to the inten­sive coope­ra­tion bet­ween sci­ence and indus­try as well as the spi­rit of rese­arch and the endu­ring com­mit­ment of all involved«.

Honor for inno­va­tive achie­ve­ments in engi­nee­ring and the life sciences

The Deut­sche Zukunfts­preis has been pre­sen­ted every year since 1997. It is one of the hig­hest acco­lades for sci­en­ti­fic achie­ve­ment in Ger­many and is worth 250,000 euros. It honors excep­tio­nal achie­ve­ments in tech­no­logy, engi­nee­ring and the life sci­en­ces that have resul­ted in via­ble pro­ducts. Every year, during a mul­tis­tage sel­ec­tion pro­cess, the pres­ti­gious jury sel­ects three rese­arch teams and their inno­va­tion for the final round from among a large num­ber of dif­fe­rent pro­jects, the »short­list«. Along­side their inno­va­tive achie­ve­ments, the jury also eva­lua­tes the development’s eco­no­mic and social poten­tial. Along­side the win­ning EUV team, a team from Carl Zeiss Medi­tec was also short­lis­ted. ZEISS was the­r­e­fore the first com­pany in the history of the Deut­scher Zukunfts­preis to hold two nomi­na­ti­ons. The award was pre­sen­ted in Ber­lin on 25 Novem­ber 2020 under pan­de­mic rest­ric­tions at Verti Music Hall by Fede­ral Pre­si­dent Frank-Wal­ter Stein­meier. ZEISS and TRUMPF are dona­ting the prize money for cha­ri­ta­ble purposes.

About ZEISS

ZEISS is an inter­na­tio­nally lea­ding tech­no­logy enter­prise ope­ra­ting in the fields of optics and opto­elec­tro­nics. In the pre­vious fis­cal year, the ZEISS Group gene­ra­ted annual reve­nue tota­ling more than 6.4 bil­lion euros in its four seg­ments Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy, Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch, Medi­cal Tech­no­logy and Con­su­mer Mar­kets (sta­tus: 30 Sep­tem­ber 2019).

For its cus­to­mers, ZEISS deve­lops, pro­du­ces and dis­tri­bu­tes highly inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for indus­trial metro­logy and qua­lity assu­rance, micro­scopy solu­ti­ons for the life sci­en­ces and mate­ri­als rese­arch, and medi­cal tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for dia­gno­stics and tre­at­ment in oph­thal­mo­logy and micro­sur­gery. The name ZEISS is also syn­ony­mous with the world’s lea­ding litho­gra­phy optics, which are used by the chip indus­try to manu­fac­ture semi­con­duc­tor com­pon­ents. There is glo­bal demand for trend­set­ting ZEISS brand pro­ducts such as eye­glass len­ses, camera len­ses and binoculars.

With a port­fo­lio ali­gned with future growth areas like digi­ta­liza­tion, health­care and Smart Pro­duc­tion and a strong brand, ZEISS is sha­ping the future of tech­no­logy and con­stantly advan­cing the world of optics and rela­ted fields with its solu­ti­ons. The company’s signi­fi­cant, sus­tainable invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment lay the foun­da­tion for the suc­cess and con­tin­ued expan­sion of ZEISS‹ tech­no­logy and mar­ket leadership.

With over 31,000 employees, ZEISS is active glo­bally in almost 50 count­ries with around 60 sales and ser­vice com­pa­nies, 30 pro­duc­tion sites and 25 deve­lo­p­ment sites. Foun­ded in 1846 in Jena, the com­pany is head­quar­te­red in Ober­ko­chen, Ger­many. The Carl Zeiss Foun­da­tion, one of the lar­gest foun­da­ti­ons in Ger­many com­mit­ted to the pro­mo­tion of sci­ence, is the sole owner of the hol­ding com­pany, Carl Zeiss AG.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at www.zeiss.com

About TRUMPF

TRUMPF is a high-tech com­pany offe­ring manu­fac­tu­ring solu­ti­ons in the fields of machine tools and laser tech­no­logy. The Com­pany dri­ves digi­tal con­nec­ti­vity in manu­fac­tu­ring through con­sul­ting, plat­form pro­ducts and soft­ware. TRUMPF is a tech­no­logy and mar­ket lea­der in highly ver­sa­tile machine tools for sheet metal pro­ces­sing and in the field of indus­trial lasers.

In 2019/20, the com­pany employed some 14,300 peo­ple and gene­ra­ted sales of about 3.5 bil­lion euros (preli­mi­nary figu­res). With over 70 sub­si­dia­ries, the TRUMPF Group is repre­sen­ted in nearly every Euro­pean coun­try as well as in North Ame­rica, South Ame­rica and Asia. The com­pany has pro­duc­tion faci­li­ties in Aus­tria, China, the Czech Repu­blic, France, Ger­many, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Pol­and, Switz­er­land, the United King­dom and the United States.

Find out more about TRUMPF at www.trumpf.com

About Fraun­ho­fer

The Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft, head­quar­te­red in Ger­many, is the world’s lea­ding applied rese­arch orga­niza­tion. With its focus on deve­lo­ping key tech­no­lo­gies that are vital for the future and enab­ling the com­mer­cial explo­ita­tion of this work by busi­ness and indus­try, Fraun­ho­fer plays a cen­tral role in the inno­va­tion pro­cess. As a pio­neer and cata­lyst for ground­brea­king deve­lo­p­ments and sci­en­ti­fic excel­lence, Fraun­ho­fer helps shape society now and in the future. Foun­ded in 1949, the Fraun­ho­fer-Gesell­schaft curr­ently ope­ra­tes 74 insti­tu­tes and rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons throug­hout Ger­many. The majo­rity of the organization’s 28,000 employees are qua­li­fied sci­en­tists and engi­neers, who work with an annual rese­arch bud­get of 2.8 bil­lion euros. Of this sum, 2.3 bil­lion euros is gene­ra­ted through con­tract research.

Find out more about Fraun­ho­fer at www.fraunhofer.de/en

Pres­se­kon­takt

Fre­de­ric Franz
ZEISS Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Technology
+49 7364 20 62838
+49 151 187 68 954
moc.ssiez@znarf.cirederf

Dr. Manuel Thomä
TRUMPF
+49 7156 303–30992
+49 151 72728434
moc.fpmurt.ed@eamohT.leunaM

Janis Eit­ner
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
+49 89 1205–1030
ed.refohnuarf.vz@rentie.sinaj