Stepper production stepping up at Nikon

17 Jun 2002

Annual shipments of its steppers for semiconductor fabrication will set a new record in FY1995 at around 600 units, a 30% jump, according to Nikon (Tokyo, Japan). However, the company originally projected a 15% rise in FY1995 sales of its steppers for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) fabrication but now sees a 10% decline, to just more than 30 units, compared with last year. The decline is attributed to oversupply of thin-film-transistor-type LCDs.

Subsidiary Nikon Precision (Belmont, CA) has also just announced a stepper with a resolution better than 0.28 =B5m to increase the utility of deep-UV technology for volume production, according to PennWell Publishing's Laser Report..