Nikon To Make High-End Immersion Chip-Making Tool Earlier
Wednesday February 18, 11:05 pm ET
TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Nikon Corp. said Thursday it will bring forward plans to develop and mass produce immersion lithography systems, used for mapping electronic circuits on silicon wafers.
The Japanese chip-equipment maker said it will accelerate the co-development of the machines with Tokyo Electron Ltd. and begin mass production and sales of 193-nanometer immersion-lithography machines in the latter half of 2005, rather than 2006 as originally planned.
Immersion lithography works by inserting a layer of water between the lens of the lithography machine and the silicon wafer. The water layer allows a better focus than having a layer of air, and the size of the chip can be reduced due to the thinner circuitry involved.
Nikon initially scheduled mass production of tools equipped with lower numerical aperture lenses, but said Thursday it would instead market machines with lenses having a numerical aperture of 1.0 or greater. A higher numerical aperture represents a brighter projection lens.
Nikon had planned to market machines with that level of lens brightness in 2006. The higher aperture, along with other factors, increases the machine's resolution, helping chip makers to produce smaller, cheaper, and more powerful chips.
Bringing forward plans to produce the more sophisticated machines will enable Nikon machines to compete with those of the Netherlands' ASML Holdings N.V. , which recently announced it would produce an immersion lithography system with numerical apertures of 0.85.
Nikon said Thursday it will manufacture machines with a 0.85 aperture if customers request them. |
