ASML cuts immersion tool's defect rate: researcher

TOKYO (Reuters) - Semiconductor equipment maker ASML has sharply reduced defect rates in chips produced by a new lithography tool that uses cutting-edge immersion technology, Belgian research group IMEI said on Thursday.

Netherlands-based ASML is the world's largest maker of lithography steppers -- multimillion-dollar machines used to etch circuitry onto silicon. Japan's Nikon, the number two maker, plans to begin shipping its version in the October-December quarter.

New immersion machines, which allow chip makers to map out much smaller electronic circuitry on silicon wafers, will be crucial for ASML to keep its lead in the global market.

"Our customers are telling us about problem points with ASML," Nikon president Michio Kariya said on Wednesday at the Reuters Asia Technology and Telecoms Summit. He cited complaints about problems with the nozzle.

ASML declined to comment on any specific customer complaints, but said that it was ahead of Nikon in introducing immersion tools, and that it was working openly with customers and had a track record of continuous improvement.

Kariya said the two rivals' immersion machines, which put a liquid between the stepper lens and the silicon wafer to allow a sharper focus and thinner circuits, used different methods for holding the liquid in place.


Spectacular reduction

Belgian research institute IMEI, an independent tester of semiconductor equipment that took the first immersion machine delivered by ASML, said the company had just concluded a crucial upgrade of the first immersion machines relating to the immersion hood and the immersion wafer stage.

"We observe a spectacular reduction in defect count," the research group said.

"This (is) extremely significant progress for...the industrial readiness of immersion technology," it said in a paper due to be presented at a seminar next month.

Many chip makers buy equipment from both Nikon and ASML, and the two are fighting hard to take the lead in the lucrative market for immersion tools, which will shrink chip circuits below 45 nanometres, or billionths of a metre. Cutting-edge chip plants are just beginning to use 65-nanometre circuitry.

Thinner circuits allow chipmakers to cut costs and reduce the size of their chips.

The newest immersion machines will sell for about 30 million euros (US$37 million) each.

Nikon's Kariya said his company would introduce an immersion tool with a numerical aperture (NA) of 1.3 in 2006, following ASML's 1.2 NA tool scheduled for delivery in the second quarter of next year.

For conventional steppers, the maximum value for numerical aperture is 1.0. A high NA allows a stepper to project a more focused beam of light, and therefore create smaller electronic features on a wafer.

ASML, which also competes with Japan's Canon, has about half of the world market for chip lithography machines in value terms.

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