Nikon NA more than 1 of the liquid immersion equipment semiconductor business officially adopted

Nikon officially announced the day before, January 2006 has been to large semiconductor manufacturers supply for 55nm process (HP55) chip manufacturing, the opening number (NA) leaching ArF exposure equipment "NSR-S609B 1.07 liquid". This is the world's first supply of more than 1 of the liquid ArF NA exposure equipment.

The name of this large semiconductor manufacturer, Nikon has not announced, is estimated to be in the past in terms of technical cooperation with Toshiba.

As a full refractive liquid immersion exposure device, NSR-S609B has the world's largest NA, with polarized lighting technology, can achieve high resolution. For the problem of liquid leaching defects and coincidence instability, allegedly using the name "Local-fill (partial liquid immersion)," the independent technology has been resolved. In addition, the use of "Random Stage" technology to improve the throughput.

The equipment was originally planned to supply by the end of 2005 to early 2006, so it seems that the development work is basically carried out according to plan. The supplied equipment is being installed and debugged. The Holland ASML plans in the second quarter of 2006, the supply of NA1.2 exposure equipment, you can imagine the competition will be very intense.