The collaboration will concentrate on developing new materials and process capabilities to support increasingly complex device architectures
IBM and Lam Research Corporation have entered into a new five-year agreement to advance logic semiconductor manufacturing at the sub-1nm node.
The two companies have been collaborating for over a decade on logic fabrication technologies, contributing to the development of early 7nm, nanosheet, and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) processes. This new agreement builds on that foundation, with a renewed focus on materials innovation, advanced etch and deposition techniques, and High Numerical Aperture (High-NA) EUV lithography.
The collaboration will concentrate on developing new materials and process capabilities to support increasingly complex device architectures. It will also focus on advancing High-NA EUV lithography processes for next-generation interconnects and device patterning, while helping drive broader industry adoption.
“Lam has been a critical partner to IBM for over a decade, contributing to key breakthroughs in logic scaling and device architecture such as nanosheet and the world’s first 2nm node chip, unveiled by IBM in 2021,” said Mukesh Khare, GM of IBM Semiconductors and VP of hybrid cloud at IBM Research. “We are thrilled to be expanding our collaboration to tackle the next set of challenges to enable High NA EUV lithography and sub-1nm nodes.”
The collaboration will combine IBM’s research capabilities at the NY Creates Albany NanoTech Complex with Lam Research’s process technologies and equipment platforms. These include the Aether dry resist technology, Kiyo and Akara etch systems, Striker and ALTUS Halo deposition platforms, and advanced packaging technologies.
According to the companies, the teams will use these capabilities to develop and validate full process flows for nanosheet and nanostack devices, as well as backside power delivery.
“As the industry enters a new era of 3D scaling, progress depends on rethinking how materials, processes, and lithography come together as a single, high-density system,” said Vahid Vahedi, chief technology and sustainability officer at Lam Research. “We are proud to build on our successful collaboration with IBM to drive High-NA EUV dry resist and process breakthroughs, accelerating the development of lower power and higher performance transistors that will be critical for AI era.”
