Tokyo Electron Limited and ASML announce agreement

Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) and ASML Holding NV (ASML) today announced an agreement to accelerate joint development activities of EUV (extreme ultraviolet) and ArF immersion using state-of-the-art lithography clusters.

This agreement on joint development acceleration was made in order to meet increasing customers' demand for leading-edge systems capable of next-generation chip production, namely EUV technology, which is the key lithography solution for 22 nm and beyond, and extended ArF immersion, which remains a mainstream technology for critical layers of advanced chip production. Through this dual technology leadership strategy, TEL and ASML are aiming to strengthen our offerings to best support our customers for sub 20 nm nodes development.

As part of this agreement, TEL and ASML will provide equipment at their respective facilities in Kumamoto, Japan, and Veldhoven, the Netherlands, to accelerate development, investigation and customer demonstration activities of the most advanced lithography technologies.

TEL to deliver their newest EUV coater/developer to ASML

Extensively researched all over the world, EUV is the key lithography solution for 22 nm and beyond nodes. Over the past years, TEL and ASML have jointly researched EUV fundamentals and facilitated early EUV customer demonstrations. In addition to these existing efforts, TEL will introduce the company's most advanced EUV coater/developer at ASML's R&D base in Veldhoven, and both companies will continue to work together to establish EUV process development for sub 22 nm nodes by the end of 2012. Process development on both ASML's leading-edge volume production system TWINSCAN NXE:3300 and TEL's newest coater/developer will be focused on key factors for EUV process development, such as reducing LWR (line width roughness), mitigating pattern collapse, controlling defects and improving CD uniformity, aiming to support smooth transition to volume production with EUV technology.

ASML to install ArF immersion exposure tool at TEL facility

Currently, ArF immersion is the most common lithography technique for high-volume advanced patterning. To meet industry needs to further optimize immersion lithography technology beyond existing capabilities, TEL and ASML will soon begin developing and validating advanced processes on ASML's 1.35 NA immersion scanners and TEL's coater/developers at TEL's Kumamoto Koshi facilities in addition to their current joint immersion process development work at ASML in Veldhoven. A key focus of this joint development work is to further increase productivity beyond 4,000 wafers per day, which was recently demonstrated at a customer's manufacturing facility. With the installation of the immersion ArF scanner completed at TEL's site, both companies intend to accelerate their joint development activity.