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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesOn September 14, 2010, Brion Technologies, then an ASML division, announced Tachyon NXE, software designed to model the behavior of ASML’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography scanners. It was a semiconductor-manufacturing software tool—not a new scanner—and was built around the TWINSCAN NXE:3100. EE Times reported the announcement at the time.
What Tachyon NXE was designed to do
Tachyon NXE simulated the EUV lithography process using characteristics, models and data from the TWINSCAN NXE:3100. The aim was to model that scanner’s optical performance and predict scanner-specific effects before chip production. In this context, computational lithography means using computer models to predict, correct, optimize and verify imaging performance across patterns, process conditions and system conditions.
The software was unveiled at the Bacus photomask symposium in Monterey, California. Brion described it as an addition to its Tachyon software family, intended to connect scanner modeling with the pattern-correction and manufacturability workflows used in chip development.
How it fit with OPC and manufacturability checks
Brion said the NXE model could be incorporated into two existing Tachyon applications:
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- Tachyon OPC+, used for optical proximity correction (OPC), which adjusts mask patterns to compensate for imaging effects.
- Tachyon LMC, a lithography manufacturability-check application.
That integration was intended to let engineers account for NXE scanner behavior within established modeling and mask-preparation workflows, rather than treating the scanner model as a standalone consumer application.
What Brion claimed—and what the performance figure means
Brion and ASML presented the software as a way to reduce EUV development time and cost, limit mask re-spins and shorten final-mask-development learning cycles. Those were company launch claims; the contemporaneous coverage does not establish independent evaluation or a named customer outcome.
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Brion also reported that, across multiple DRAM test cases, it demonstrated full-field EUV mask-data correction for approximately 8 cm² in fewer than eight hours on a single Tachyon system. That is a vendor-reported demonstration from 2010, not an independently validated benchmark or a general performance guarantee for other designs, systems or workloads.
The scanner-shipment forecast was not confirmation
In the announcement, the company expected six EUV preproduction scanners to ship before mid-2011. That was a forecast made in 2010; the sources available here do not confirm whether the shipment schedule was met.
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What the announcement does—and does not—tell us
The announcement documents an early software effort to model EUV scanner behavior and connect that model to OPC and manufacturability checks. It does not establish current Tachyon NXE availability, present-day capabilities, or how the software performed for customers after launch. Nor does it compare Tachyon NXE with competing products. Its relevance is historical and technical: it shows how ASML and Brion sought to bring scanner-specific prediction into EUV mask-development workflows.
ASML’s September 2010 announcement and EE Times’ contemporaneous report describe the product and the claims made at launch.
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