How a puddle of water saved Moore's Law
Immersion lithography saved Moore's Law (2023)
In the early 2000s, the chip industry's roadmap to smaller transistors hit a wall when 157nm lithography failed due to physics. ASML researcher Jan Mulkens and his team revived an old idea—using water under the lens—to extend 193nm lithography. Despite skepticism, they proved immersion lithography feasible, leading to the industry's first immersion system in 2003. This breakthrough enabled continued chip scaling and kept Moore's Law alive.
Projecting light through highly purified water would allow significantly smaller chip features to be printed, because the liquid allows the design of an optical lens that more accurately images the fine patterns on the wafer.