News Article
Gigaphoton eliminates helium in laser lithography purge process
The firm has developed, what it claims, for the first time in the world, a purge process that uses nitrogen. Gigaphoton says it has proved that the process can maintain laser performance at the same level as that with helium
Gigaphoton has succeeded in the development of an innovative purge process, one that does not use the rare gas helium, for its flagship "GT Series" of ArF immersion lasers. Evolving its "Green Innovations" environmental technologies, this helium-free purge process enables significant reduction of helium consumption for lithography tools. This development should make a big contribution to an industrial world suffering from a shortage and price rise of helium gas. Since its establishment in 2000, Gigaphoton has focused on achieving the highest levels of output power, performance, and stability in the industry, as well as saving on power consumption to deliver the higher efficiency required for environmentally conscious "green fab." Recently, an unstable supply and a price rise of helium gas have triggered Gigaphoton to work on development of the purge process that does not use helium, teaming up with a leading device manufacturer and a scanner manufacturer. At completion of evaluating the process performance at a Japanese device manufacturer, Gigaphoton has proven that this innovative purge process can be used for volume production. On Earth, helium is a rare gas - 5.2 ppm by volume in the atmosphere. It is mainly mined as a byproduct when natural gas is mined. Helium has been used in various industries, including for medical equipment, linear motor cars, and semiconductors, and is indispensable for modern life. But consumption of helium in manufacturing has been increased dramatically, and it is forecast that our helium supply will be depleted in approximately 25 years if consumption continues at the current rate. So, the unstable supply and price rise of helium has become a serious issue today. Gigaphoton recognises that this issue produces a negative impact upon the entire industrial world. The company has lomg been considering how to use a gas substitute for helium in order to reduce helium consumption for the purge process and thus help to conserve the helium supply for other industries that require helium more seriously. Helium is used as a purge gas for optical component modules within a laser light source. It removes active gases and impurities generated within the modules to prevent optical components from being damaged. One laser unit consumes approximately 80 to 160 kilolitres of helium per year. Therefore, all the laser light sources currently operating worldwide consume approximately 100,000 kilolitres of helium annually. Instead of helium, Gigaphoton has developed, what it claims, for the first time in the world, a purge process that uses nitrogen, an inert gas that accounts for approximately 78 percent of the atmosphere, with a stable supply, and proven that the process can maintain laser performance at the same level as that with helium. "As a laser supplier supporting the semiconductor manufacturing, we will strive to maintain a stable production environment and stay active to be conscious of global environment and whole industries," says Hitoshi Tomaru, President and CEO of Gigaphoton Inc. "We are committed to proceeding with our EcoPhoton program to make further contributions to greening of the semiconductor industry." The EcoPhoton program is a roadmap started in 2003 to implement Green Innovations, focusing on detailed analyses of three key cost-of-ownership metrics: cost of consumables, cost of downtime, and cost of environment. The program aims at achieving continuous reduction of these costs by developing innovative green technologies.
