July 5, 2012 – BUSINESS WIRE — Gigaphoton Inc., lithography light source manufacturer, reached a maximum of 5.2% extreme ultraviolet (EUV) coversion efficiency (CE), beating the semiconductor manufacturing industry’s target of 5.0% for a first-generation EUV lithography scanner. These data show an average of 4.7% CE.

Gigaphoton uses tin (Sn) plasma as the EUV source and a proprietary pre-pulse laser technique. The laser-produced plasma (LPP) light source releases optimum EUV energy from the plasma by first irradiating a droplet of Sn with a short-wavelength, solid state laser as a pre-pulse, then irradiating the enlarged droplet with the main-pulse CO₂ laser. This maximum CE of 5.2% was achieved with 150 mJ CO₂ laser energy. It would be equivalent to 175W EUV output at 100kHz CO₂ laser frequency.

Gigaphoton has been working on the development of LPP light sources for EUV lithography since 2002, investigating on-demand supply of Sn target droplets of <20µm diameter, an optimum combination of the short-wavelength solid state laser pre-pulse and the main CO₂ laser pulse, as well as debris mitigation and removal using magnetic fields to protect the collector mirror. Also read: Gigaphoton extends DUV another generation, makes progress on EUV conversion efficiency

With production-level CE, Gigaphoton is progressing toward initial shipment of a mass production model. “To respond to the request for shipment of the EUV source, we at Gigaphoton have focused on R&D to prepare for our entry into the EUV business," said Hitoshi Tomaru, president of Gigaphoton.

Gigaphoton makes high-performance deep ultraviolet (DUV) laser light sources used by major semiconductor chipmakers and is developing LPP EUV technologies. See http://www.gigaphoton.com/e/index.html.

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