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The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) has designed a new type of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment that could significantly reduce the cost to produce 7nm and smaller semiconductors, and thus revolutionize the chip manufacturing supply chain.

According to reports, the EUV equipment’s optical system is greatly simplified while power consumption is reduced by a factor of ten, raising the prospect of much cheaper advanced chip-making machines.

If so, it could mark the end of ASML’s monopoly on EUV lithography, which would have serious implications for semiconductor manufacturers, investors and governments.

The Cygnus spacecraft is filled with nearly 8,200 pounds of supplies, hardware and other critical materials for dozens of scientific and research experiments, according to NASA.

That includes tests for water recovery technology and supplies needed for a process to produce blood and immune stem cells in microgravity. Also included in the payload are materials to study the effects of spaceflight on engineered liver tissue and microorganism DNA, NASA said.

Using a laser to raise the energy state of an atom ’s nucleus, known as excitation, can lead to the development of the most precise atomic clocks. This process has been challenging because the electrons surrounding the nucleus are highly reactive to light, necessitating more light to affect the nucleus. UCLA physicists have overcome this by bonding the electrons with fluorine in a transparent crystal, allowing them to excite the neutrons in a thorium atom’s nucleus using a moderate amount of laser light. This achievement paves the way for significantly more accurate measurements of time, gravity, and other fields, far surpassing the current accuracy levels provided by atomic electrons.

For almost half a century, physicists have envisioned the possibilities that could arise from elevating the energy state of an atom’s nucleus with a laser. This breakthrough would enable the replacement of current atomic clocks with a nuclear clock, the most accurate timekeeping device ever conceived. Such precision would revolutionize fields like deep space navigation and communication.

It would also allow scientists to measure precisely whether the fundamental constants of nature are, in fact, really constant or merely appear to be because we have not yet measured them precisely enough.