February 19, 2004 – Nikon Corp. and Tokyo Electron Ltd. are accelerating their co-development of 193nm immersion lithography tools with a new mass-production start date of late 2H05, sooner than the projected date of 2006.
Nikon also said its tools will have a NA of 1.0 or greater, something it also had originally planned by 2006. ASML has already said its tools will use a NA of 0.85.