| [About
Gigaphoton]
[About Products] [About
Customer Support] |
| About Products |
| What products does Gigaphoton sell? |
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Excimer laser light sources (main units and spare parts) for
semiconductor lithography tools. |
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| What is an excimer laser? |
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An excimer laser is a kind of gas laser excited by mainly
using pulse discharge via a mixture of rare gases and halogen
gas as a medium. Krypton Fluoride (KrF) and Argon Fluoride (ArF)
excimer laser light sources allow emission of high-intensity
deep UV (DUV) light at the wavelengths of 248 nm and 193 nm,
respectively. They are used as light sources for leading-edge
lithography tools that require high resolution.
Because an excimer laser has a wide spectral bandwidth, its imaging
performance previously was not good when used for lithography
tools. But development of a line-narrowing technology using grating
has enabled emission of DUV at an extremely narrow band of sub-pm
while maintaining high luminous intensity, thereby achieving
a performance that is optimum for lithography tool optics.
(For your reference) For more information on the technologies
of Gigaphoton, see our Technology page. |
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| What is Injection-Locking Technology? |
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An injection-locking resonator injects a low-output laser
beam (master), which is emitted after being tuned to an extremely
narrow spectral bandwidth, into a high-power laser resonator
(Oscillator) that Oscillators the output by synchronizing the master
beam with the Oscillator beam. |
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| What is your major market, and who
are the main users of your products? |
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Gigaphoton’s major market is the semiconductor equipment
market (lithography tool segment). We supply excimer laser
units to every major lithography tool manufacturer on OEM basis.
Lithography tools incorporating these excimer laser units are
then introduced to semiconductor device manufacturers. For
this reason, we consider both lithography tool manufacturers
and semiconductor manufacturers to be our important customers.
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| What kind of manufacturing process
are your products used for? |
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The lithography process in semiconductor manufacturing. |
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| Where do you conduct research and
development of your products? |
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We conduct development of our products at the Oyama office,
and development of future technologies (element technologies)
at the Hiratsuka office. |
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| What does the initial “G” of
each product name mean? |
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It signifies a product required for the gigabit era. |
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| When was the first “G” product
series released? |
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Gigaphoton introduced model G20A in 2001, but the origin of
the “G” series goes back to the G6 series introduced
in 1993 by Komatsu Ltd. |
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| What is the latest G series model? |
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Model G41K (KrF, 4 kHz) and the GigaTwin GT62A (ArF, 6 kHz). |
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| How much do the G series models
sell for? |
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Our products are delivered on an OEM basis, so their prices
are not disclosed publicly. |
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| Who are your main competitors? |
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Cymer Inc. (USA) |
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| What products compete with your
G product series? |
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Cymer’s ELS series, Nanolitho series, XLA series and XLR series.
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|
| What are the advantages of Gigaphoton’s
products? |
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- An excimer laser unit uses very expensive replacement
parts (modules); the cost of these parts is a major portion
of the running cost of the entire lithography tool. Gigaphoton’s
replacement parts have longer life, thus prolonging the replacement
interval and making a great contribution to reduction of
the running cost for users.
- Excellent spectrum stability.
- Incomparable stability of “E95”, which is the
current focus of attention in the lithography field because
it greatly
influences the isolated line in fine circuit patterns and
the CD accuracy in dense circuit patterns.
|
|
| How can we purchase your products? |
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At present, we do not sell our products directly to general
customers; we supply them to lithography tool manufacturers
on an OEM basis.
|
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| Please describe your product warranty. |
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For the cost of a module or part that was used for a number
of pulses greater than the number of warranty life pulses but
fewer than the number of expected life pulses, we offer the user
a discount proportional to the number of expected life pulses
minus the actual number of pulses reached at replacement. As
the result, the CoO per pulse is guaranteed for the user. For
details of each laser model and its warranty conditions, contact
the Sales Division of Gigaphoton at +81-285-28-8420.
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| Do you lease your products? |
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No, we do not. |
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| Can we trade in a used unit at the
time of purchasing the new one? |
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To inquire about trade-in of a used unit, please contact the
manufacturer of the lithography tool on which our laser unit
is mounted. |
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| Do you offer trade-in campaign for
laser units of other manufacturers? |
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No, not at this time. |
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| Can you give us a quote on your
products? |
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For the quotation request or other specific inquiry, please
contact the Sales Division of Gigaphoton at +81-285-28-8420. |
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| Can you provide us with detailed
information about your products for evaluation? |
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To request product materials, please contact the Sales Division
of Gigaphoton at +81-285-28-8420. |
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| Can we see a demonstration of your
products? |
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To request a demonstration of our products, please contact
the Sales Division of Gigaphoton at +81-285-28-8420. |
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| Please explain about your product “REDeeM.” |
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“REDeeM (Remote Equipment Data Management)” is
a system for remotely monitoring excimer laser units using the
Internet. This tool allows inexpensive (low introduction and
operating costs), easy (user-friendly), and safe (ensured security)
sharing of information on the laser running status within each
customer site, thus helping us to better support laser maintenance
management.
Conventionally, semiconductor device manufacturers use a closed
management system that stores information (such as equipment
data) within their site. REDeeM is a unique open monitoring system
that manages that information through an off-site server (via
the Internet). |
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| What kind of benefits does the user
obtain from the introduction of REDeeM? |
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For users who have introduced REDeeM, service response times
have been dramatically enhanced because information can be
shared in real time by the semiconductor manufacturer, lithography
tool manufacturer, and field service and development engineers
at Gigaphoton. In addition, for users who have a number of
units installed, REDeeM reduces the equipment management burden
upon their engineers by enabling easy and optimum management
of the operation of multiple laser units, thus contributing
to a substantial reduction of cost.
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| What is the operating configuration
of REDeeM? |
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REDeeM consists of three units: a server unit that has central
control over equipment data and applications, a laser unit that
delivers equipment data to the server, and a client unit that
monitors the equipment status.
Each of these three units is connected via the Internet; use
of the HTTPS communication protocol allows encryption of the
communication paths to ensure the security of the data. |
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| How can we obtain your product catalogs? |
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Select “Download” on the Products page (Products
catalogs are currently available in Japanese only.)
For additional details about our products, contact our Sales
Division at +81-285-28-8420, or use “Contact
Us” form.
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FAQ – Frequently
Asked Questions