May 16, 2012 — Gigaphoton Inc., lithography light source manufacturer, began operations at its wholly owned subsidiary, Gigaphoton Korea Inc. Gigaphoton points to Korea as “one of the most important regions in the global semiconductor industry.”
Through Gigaphoton Korea Inc., the company will aggressively promote new business opportunities with Korean semiconductor device manufacturers as its potential customers and further reinforce its local technical support system for existing customers of Gigaphoton deep ultraviolet (DUV) lasers for semiconductor lithography systems in Korea. The subsidiary is also tasked with establishing strong relationships with Korean semiconductor device manufacturers to accelerate the development of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) as the next-generation lithography light source.
Gigaphoton has operated its excimer laser business through USHIO KOREA INC., a wholly owned subsidiary of USHIO INC., as its sales representative. However, Gigaphoton became a wholly owned subsidiary of Komatsu after Komatsu purchased the 50% of Gigaphoton shares owned by USHIO INC. in May 2011. Gigaphoton then started taking over its business in the Republic of Korea from USHIO INC. Continuing this process, Gigaphoton founded its wholly owned Korean subsidiary last August and proceeded with business transfer. With completion of the business transfer, Gigaphoton Korea Inc. started business operation on May 1, 2012..
Yutaka Katsuki is the representative director of Gigaphoton Korea.
Gigaphoton recently opened a regional training center and headquarters in the US.
Gigaphoton makes DUV laser light sources used by major semiconductor chipmakers in lithography patterning operations globally. Gigaphoton is also developing LPP EUV technology solutions for cost-effective, highly productive lithography for high-volume production at future nodes. See http://www.gigaphoton.com/e/index.html.