December 10, 2002
SEMICON JAPAN 2002

SEMICON JAPAN 2002 was held on December 4 through 6 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. Even in the midst of a serious downturn in the semiconductor industry, more than 100 thousand people from all over the world attended this show.

During the events, numerous engineers from lithography tool manufacturers and semiconductor manufacturers visited the Gigaphoton booth to talk with Gigaphoton staff about a variety of interesting topics, from current processes to next-generation technologies such as EUV lithography.

“ Through these discussions with our customers,” said Dr. Watanabe, President of Gigaphoton. “I feel confident that there are a great number of opportunities today and tomorrow through which we can contribute to the growth of the semiconductor industry.”

December 3, 2002
Gigaphoton Announces G42A Series of High-throughput ArF Excimer Laser

Gigaphoton Inc. announced today that it has successfully developed and begun marketing the “G42A” ArF (Argon Fluoride) excimer laser (emission wavelength: 193 nm; repetition rate: 4,000 Hz) for use as a lithography light source for the mass production of semiconductor devices with a design rule of 80 nm or less.

Gigaphoton, founded in August 2000 as a joint venture of Komatsu Ltd. and Ushio Inc., develops, manufactures, markets, and supports excimer laser products that are used for lithography tools. Yuuji Watanabe, who was named as President in October 2002, commented, “ArF lasers are becoming increasingly popular, and our G40A series has won high praise in field tests conducted at our customers’ sites since last year. The G40A series, developed based on strong requests from our customers, has succeeded in achieving the narrowest spectral bandwidth and excellent energy stability as a highly practical single-chamber laser system.”