In November 2011, we at Gigaphoton achieved shipment of 1,000 DUV units, a great milestone for us. We held a simple ceremony and photo session to celebrate this achievement with all the employees at our Oyama campus on January 11, as the start of the new year 2012. We are proud to have overcome so many challenges with our never-give-up spirit and teamwork, perservering until we shipped the 1,000th unit. Finally, we’d like to extend a special thank you to our customers for their tremendous support of our products.

In November 2011, we shipped the 1,000th DUV laser light source unit to a major Japanese semiconductor manufacturer. This unit was our latest model GT62A for double-patterning immersion lithography, the most advanced lithography process for mass-production today.
Komatsu, the predecessor of Gigaphoton, released the world’s first excimer laser model KLE-630S for semiconductor lithography processing in 1987. In 1997, Komatsu marketed its KrF excimer laser (with a wavelength of 248 nm), model G10K, for mass-production of semiconductor devices with a half-pitch of 250 nm or less.
Since its establishment in 2000, Gigaphoton has released a series of leading-edge DUV excimer laser light sources for the latest lithography processes: single-chamber ArF excimer laser (with the wavelength of 193 nm) G40A in 2001; twin-chamber ArF excimer laser GT40A for mass-production of semiconductor devices with a half-pitch below 65 nm in 2004; GT60A for devices with a half-pitch below 45 nm in 2005; GT61A for immersion lithography in 2006; and GT62A for double-patterning immersion lithography used to manufacture devices with a half-pitch below 32 nm.

DUV Excimer Laser Light Sources from Komatsu and Gigaphoton

Today, double-patterning immersion lithography using an ArF excimer laser is being used for mass-production of a variety of advanced semiconductor devices with a half-pitch ranging from 65 nm to 32 nm, including DRAMs, flash memory, MPUs, and system LSIs for digital home electronics products. The revenue of the world semiconductor industry is equal to 25% of the world GNP. This percentage will tend to further increase in the future. This also gives the evidence how much Gigaphoton, which has been working on excimer laser lithography for a quarter of century, has contributed to the world’s semiconductor industry.