December 2, 2003 – Nikon Corp., Belmont, CA, has unveiled plans to introduce ArF immersion lithography equipment, based on its NSR-S307E 193nm lithography tool.
The company is scheduled to have a trial model with a NA=0.85 completed in 2H04, with a pre-production model (NA=0.92) ready by 2005, and mass production (NA=1.0) slated for 2006.
The announcement comes a few weeks after after similar immersion lithography plans were laid out by ASML and Canon.