Cutting-Edge Stepper with World's Highest N.A. Lens for 65 nm or Smaller Devices Announcing Start of Ordering for Nikon's Step-and-Repeat Scanning System NSR-S308F

Nikon Corporation (Teruo SHIMAMURA, President) is pleased to announce that it has developed and in April 2004 will start receiving orders for the lens-based scanning ArF excimer laser stepper, Nikon Step-and-Repeat Scanning System NSR-S308F, for use in the mass-production of advanced 65 nm or smaller devices. The new system has the world's highest^* N.A. lens.

The NSR-S308F will be equipped with the world's highest N.A. (N.A. 0.92) projection lens supporting an ArF excimer laser (193 nm wavelength). The system will also have dramatically improved throughput performance and alignment accuracy thanks to the adoption of a newly developed body.

• *If air is a medium; with Nikon's immersion lithography technology, N.A. of 1.0 higher are possible.

Sales Summary

Development Background

Progress continues on increasing the density of VLSI chips, the foundation of the IT revolution, and plans are made to develop and produce 65 nm rule devices on cutting-edge production lines. Nikon released the world's first lens-based scanning system, the NSR-S201A, in April 1995. Since then, Nikon's lens-based scanning systems have received high marks for performance and reliability from semiconductor manufacturers throughout the world, enabling us to ship in excess of 650 units to date, including i-line, KrF excimer laser, and ArF excimer laser models.

The NSR-S308F has made advancements over the projection lens of the NSR-S307E, which started to be shipped in October of last year, and with a super high N.A. (N.A. 0.92) low aberration projection lens supporting an ArF excimer laser, it can realize the mass production of 65 nm or smaller devices. In addition, the adoption of a newly developed body enables dramatic improvements in alignment accuracy and throughput performance.

Main Performance Features

Main Characteristics

• Equipped with World's Highest N.A. (N.A. 0.92) Projection Lens
  The NSR-S308F is equipped with a super-high performance projection lens having the world's highest N.A. (0.92) supporting an ArF excimer laser. This enables the mass production of next-generation devices of 65 nm or smaller. The tool supports the mass production of ever more dense next-generation DRAM, MPU, and so on.
• Further Improvement in Alignment Accuracy
  Improvements in alignment sensors have enabled an approximate 50% improvement in alignment accuracy over conventional models, reaching the 8 nm level.
• Further Reductions in CoO (Cost of Ownership)
  The adoption of a newly developed body realized a reduced CoO with improvements in throughput (processing capability) and other features. When 300 mm wafers are used, 140 or more wafers can be processed each hour (an improvement of about 25% compared to previous models).