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Lithography Steppers and Scanners market to receive boost from product innovation

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Rising consumer demand for electronics with greater functionality drives semiconductor manufacturers to aggressively scale to smaller device features and generate high volumes in order to offer competitive product prices.

This increasing demand motivates the semiconductor industry to expand manufacturing capacity and acquire high-end manufacturing equipment to achieve the required device scaling. Since lithography represents a key step in manufacturing, the lithography steppers and scanners market appears poised to benefit from the semiconductor industry's demand for cost-effective tools with high productivity.

World Markets for Lithography Steppers and Scanners, reveals that this market earned revenues of US$7.87 billion in 2006 and estimates this to reach US$10.47 billion in 2010.

"Demand for memory products will drive investment in equipping megafabs," states Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Dr. Amit Dixit. "Increasing utilisation rates at foundries will spur additional investment in semiconductor equipment."

Technological advancements in flash memory continue at an accelerated pace compared to that of integrated circuits. While the transistor density in integrated circuits has doubled approximately every eighteen months following Moore's law, flash memory scaling has followed Hwang's law wherein the memory density doubles annually. In response to the demand for memory devices, 'megafabs,' capable of processing about one million wafers annually, will drive the demand for lithography equipment.

"In order to manage the costs of process development, logic integrated device manufacturers are expected to transfer production to foundries and go fabless," adds Dr. Dixit. "This trend will increase the utilisation rates at foundries and promote additional investment in lithography equipment."

The development of lithography tools entails substantial technical challenges which will likely increase with each new technology node. For instance, though a consensus seems to have emerged in the industry for adopting double patterning technology for the 32nm node in 2009, equipment manufacturers face technical challenges in optimizing product performance in terms of productivity and overlay error.

Effective collaboration with materials suppliers, semiconductor end users and research organisations will remain critical when addressing product development technical challenges presented by future technology nodes. Market success will depend on the ability of market participants to deliver high-end lithography tools with the best productivity and cost of ownership.

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