This week, SEMATECH (along with Imec and SELETE) is sponsoring back-to-back symposia on EUV lithography and extensions to immersion lithography in Prague, Czech Republic. Since I was invited to speak at the immersion symposium, and because I love Prague, I decided to attend.

I have to begin with a story of personal transformation. Five years ago I had to have extra pages sewn into my passport because every page was full of stamps. (I won’t even tell you how many millions of miles I have flown in my life – too many.) I like traveling, especially to new locations, but even for me that amount of travel was too much. But in preparing for this trip, I glanced at my passport as I was making my travel arrangements and noticed that it had been expired for nine months! That shows how much my life has changed (much for the better) since I became a gentleman scientist (and a father) four years ago. Life is good.

I’m now here in Prague, jet-lagged and listening to EUV papers (not a happy combination). I’ll report on my impressions of the EUV conference tomorrow.