Jan. 21, 2008 – Fujifilm says its electronics materials subsidiary has purchased an advanced argon fluoride (ArF) immersion scanner to help accelerate the push to bring its new family of ArF immersion photoresists to high-volume manufacturing.

Evaluating the materials on the same tools its customers use, which is compatible with 45nm-32nm node immersion litho processes using an ArF laser source, will help the company continuously evaluate ArF immersion resists and respond more quickly to customer engineering and design requests, the companies explained in a statement.

“Acquisition of this toolset is essential to achieve high market-share in this very competitive technology area,” stated Keiji Mihayashi, president and CEO of Fujifilm Electronic Materials USA. Combined with the company’s FAiR product line, “we will accelerate our presence in the market by leveraging these advances in topcoat-free technology and by extending them to new high-quality photoresists being developed for 32nm manufacturing.”