(xLight Inc., Palo Alto, California) Founded in 2021, xLight is developing a tunable free-electron laser (FEL) that creates EUV light for semiconductor manufacturing. xLight claims its next-generation EUV light produces four times more EUV power and that wafers constructed under xLight will have far fewer defects that current EUV generation.
xLight generation is like a particle acclerator that resides outside the semiconductor fab. Instead of the EUV light generation in each lithography machine today, xLight can deliver EUV light to several machines within the fab. In addition, xLight's wavelengths are tunable, which allows fine-tuning of the pulse's duration, energy and wavelength. A tunable laser has lower power requirements, higher conversion efficiency and better droplet control. See
EUV light and
High-NA EUV.
FELs vs. XFELs
A FEL generates light up to X-rays, but an XFEL (X-ray free-electron laser) generates X-rays with shorter wavelengths. Whereas FELs provide microscopic resolution, XFELs generate atomic resolution.