ASML ships 100th TWINSCAN XT:19x0 series immersion system

VELDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDS: ASML Holding NV (ASML) announced the shipment of its 100th TWINSCAN XT:1900 series lithography system, capable of imaging industry-leading chip features as small as 38 nanometers.

The XT:19x0 series includes the XT:1900Gi and XT:1950Hi systems, both featuring the industry’s largest numerical aperture of 1.35. In total, ASML has shipped more than 160 TWINSCAN immersion systems, all capable of imaging sub-60 nm chip features.

TWINSCAN XT:19x0 series immersion systems are the enabling technology behind the most advanced memory and logic chips in volume production. Semiconductor manufacturers around the world, including 18 of the world’s top 20, use TWINSCAN immersion scanners to produce an estimated 350 million chips every month.

“Immersion lithography is now a mature technology,” said Jan Smits, senior vice president, TWINSCAN product group at ASML. “However, our immersion development continues in order to provide chipmakers with products that meet application-specific needs. Our XT systems provide cost-efficient, single-exposure manufacturing down to 38nm, while our new NXT platform provides the enhanced overlay and productivity performance required for double-patterning of critical features as small as 22 nm.”

As of December 31st 2009 ASML had shipped five TWINSCAN NXT systems and had another 17 NXT systems in backlog, positioning this new class of immersion systems to become the preferred productivity system for DRAM and Logic chip manufacturing and future Flash nodes. Multiple customers will start volume production on NXT in the second quarter of 2010.