Hydrogen recycling for EUV

The semiconductor industry faces numerous sustainability and environmental challenges. These include waste and the circular economy, water use, air pollution, global climate change, and energy use. These topics are interdependent. Many processes use process gases that have significant embodied energy. Recovery and recycling of these gases not only reduces operating costs and improves supply chain resilience, but also reduces the total carbon footprint of the process. To this end, Edwards is developing a Hydrogen Recovery System (HRS) capable of recovering EUV process waste hydrogen gas. The HRS purifies and pressurizes the waste hydrogen to meet purity & pressure requirements and recycles the gas directly into the EUV lithography tool. In partnership with imec, Edwards has demonstrated successful recycling into the ASML NXE:3400B EUV scanner installed at imec. Over 9 million standard liters (approximately 850 kg) of hydrogen have recycled with no negative impact to the performance of the EUV scanner, while reducing EUV-related hydrogen consumption approximately 70%. Recovery rates and purity are discussed.