1. Purpose and scope
Pathfinding decides what a future node could be built from. Many options are open at the start: different transistor architectures, channel and gate materials, contact and interconnect schemes, patterning approaches for the tightest layers, and new ways of stacking or routing power. The purpose of this stage is to explore those options quickly and cheaply, close the ones that cannot work, and arrive at a single technology concept that development can commit to with reasonable confidence.
The work is mostly evidence gathering. Device physicists and TCAD engineers simulate candidate devices, materials scientists and module engineers run short experiments on partial wafers, lithography engineers test whether the critical pitches can be printed with the patterning options available, and DTCO engineers check how each option would affect real design structures such as standard cells, memory bit cells and routing. The stage often runs well ahead of any product that will use the node, which is why its conclusions must be recorded with their evidence and the options that were rejected.
In scope: the candidate options list, device simulation, module feasibility experiments, a first DTCO study, an assessment of equipment and materials readiness, and the pathfinding report. Out of scope: fixing performance, power and density targets, the device menu and the business case, which belong to Technology Definition, and developing modules to capability on production class tools, which belongs to Process Module Development.
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