Notice of Organizational Change; Establishment of CMP Division

Nikon Corporation is proud to announce the launching of the CMP Division (CMP stands for "Chemical Mechanical Polishing").

The purpose of this new enterprise is to commercialize a project that has been underway since April 2000, and provide planning, development, manufacturing, and sales and services for CMP systems, related products and consumables.

In line with this change, Nikon will aggressively develop and carry out CMP business on a full-scale basis.

The CMP (Chemical Mechanical Polishing) System consists of polishing and planarizing the surfaces of interconnects and dielectric layers in the LSI manufacturing process. With the advance of large-scale integration and the growing sophistication of process technology, CMP is becoming increasingly important.