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Technology Stocks : ASML Holding NV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: niek who wrote (1197)	8/28/2006 1:55:44 PM
From: niek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42840

ASML provides update on first alpha EUV lithography system shipments The Semiconductor Reporter August 28, 2006 VELDHOVEN, the Netherlands -- ASML Holding NV will ship alpha versions of the world's first extreme ultraviolet steppers this quarter, Peter Jenkins, vice president of corporate marketing for ASML, told The Semiconductor Reporter. The alpha EUV system shipments are occuring more than three years before commercial EUV shipments are slated to begin. ASML will ship two EUV alpha tools with numerical apertures of 0.25, one to the Interuniversity MicroElectronics Center (IMEC) in Leuven, Belgium, and the other to Albany NanoTech at the State University of New York in Albany, Jenkins said. Last year, the company said it would ship the alpha tools in the second quarter (see Dec. 6 story); Jenkins declined to say why the tools will be shipped one quarter later than planned. ASML had said the two alpha EUV tools were already assembled last year, while vendors of mask blanks (Schott Lithotec), photomasks (Toppan Photomasks), and optical systems (Carl Zeiss SMT) were subsequently shipping components to ASML. The EUV systems, Jenkins said, will help developers design and build the necessary components around its EUV tools. "The [EUV alpha system deliveries] will help secure the infrastructure necessary for supplying this technology into volume production," Jenkins said. EUV is not currently expected to see commercial use for wafer production until before the end of the decade, for 32-nm and smaller processes. ASML also took the lead by shipping the first 193-nm immersion lithography tools in 2004, with Nikon following. ASML said it shipped its first immersion system in the second quarter of 2004 and says it delivered 21 immersion systems through the second quarter 2006. According to Dataquest, out of the 23-unit total of immersion systems it expects will be shipped this year, ASML will maintain a dominant share.