"We booked one billion euro worth of orders in the first quarter of 2010 and expect a similar level of bookings in the second quarter," said ASML CEO Eric Meurice.

Like others with a stake in EUV lithography development, maskmakers are being asked to contribute money to a Sematech effort to close the funding gap in mask inspection development. It's a tough question, however, given the low probability of a return on that investment anywhere in the near future.

Intel expects to complement 193nm immersion lithography with either EUV or electron-beam direct write lithography for the 11nm generation, expected to arrive in 2015, according to Yan Borodovsky, director of Intel's Advanced Lithography and Manufacturing Group.

STMicroelectronics has joined the new industry/research multi-partner program IMAGINE, led by CEA-Leti, which includes TSMC, for mask-less lithography for IC manufacturing.

The world's largest maker of semiconductor lithography machines, which map out electronic circuits on silicon wafers, was forecast to report a further rise in bookings from the third quarter, driven by consumer spending on end products.

Vendors were hit hard by the downturn. 2010 looks better, but fab tool makers still face a number of challenges.

For years, TSMC has primarily used ASML as its lithography vendor. But in a surprise move, TSMC has procured a new 193nm immersion lithography scanner from Nikon.

Citing the fab tool recovery, Barclays Capital has raised its immersion lithography unit shipment estimate from 95 units to 105 units for 2010.

Standard lithography uses a set of masks to create a pattern of structures in a photoresist that's exposed to ultraviolet light. The Taiwan team's process eliminates both the masks and the photoresist, relying instead on a metallorganic gas, an organic molecule studded with atoms of platinum.

This project seeks to optimize the patterning process from design to manufacturing, extend characterization tools and methods to develop new correction and compensation techniques for reducing variability. The project will also explore lithography options for manufacturing complex chips at sub-30nm nodes.

The consensus is that availability of defect-free masks and, perhaps more importantly, a lack of funding for an infrastructure that can inspect those masks, is the most critical issue faced today by EUV lithography development. But working groups are making progress defining - and funding - the solution.

"Demand for our XLR immersion lithography light sources and Installed Base Products rose sharply during the quarter, driven by increased investment from the foundry and memory sectors in support of transitions to the 5x nanometer node and below," said Cymer's CEO Bob Akins. Cymer's net income totaled US$10.79 million in the third quarter, compared to net income of US$5.33 million a year ago.

ASML generated net income of 20 million euro in the third quarter of 2009 compared to a net loss in the prior quarter. "ASML's third quarter sales doubled from the second quarter, stemming from technology transition demand for our immersion lithography systems as new DRAM devices are introduced and as Foundry customers are ramping 40nm products..."

Hynix, IMEC, Intel, Samsung, Toshiba and possibly TSMC are the initial customers for ASML's "pre-production" extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tool, according to an analyst.

IMEC's revenues will be down only about 5% this year, compared to drops of 20% generally among electronics vendors. "R&D is the last part to cut because they need to continue to innovate," said company CEO Van den hove.

Canon is reportedly telling customers it will no longer develop future, leading-edge lithography tools, namely 193nm dry and immersion scanners, according to industry sources.

Cymer, the world's leading supplier of light sources used by chipmakers to create advanced semiconductor chips, now anticipates revenues for third-quarter 2009 to increase around 30% sequentially.

ASML has reported a business pick-up above previous guidance resulting mainly from the short- and mid-term needs in the DRAM memory and Logic segments.

Lead times for immersion lithography tools are being extended from approximately nine months to about 12 or more, thanks to aggressive tool buying by the likes of Samsung and TSMC, according to analysts at Barclays Capital.

A technologist from Sun Microsystems has commented NAND vendors are going down the wrong path by racing each other in process technology--at the expense of customer needs. He was also critical of SSDs for servers, saying the emerging technology is still too expensive.

Citing the embodiment of its concept of "holistic lithography," ASML has unwrapped two hardware/software components to help chipmakers improve lithography process windows while avoiding costly and timely steps and maintenance downtime.

Nikon has said it will reorganize its lithography operations, cutting 800 production workers in Japan and 200 marketing and support staff worldwide. By October, Nikon plans to combine four production subsidiaries into two, focused on IC and display equipment.

Equipment supplier EV Group said that strong equipment orders in the last quarter have led to plans to increase production capacity with an extra working shift, starting near the end of April. New orders have exceeded the equipment suppliers forecasts, with demand coming from 3D IC through-silicon via (TSV) and nanoimprint lithography markets.

Agfa, Philips and the Holst Center are showing a large-area (12x12cm2) flexible OLED - without ITO as transparent electrode, and with printed shunting lines. This means that costly materials and lithography processes are not needed, and the OLEDs are much cheaper.

At Nikon's annual LithoVision symposium yesterday on the eve of the SPIE Advanced Lithography conference in San Jose, representatives from throughout the lithography community, as well as Nikon representatives, gave updates on progress being made in immersion lithography, double patterning and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Although they had much to tell on the technology advances, a common theme was the consternation at not yet having what appears to be a workable solution beyond 20nm.

Cymer. which makes lasers used in semiconductor manufacturing, is cutting 10% of its work force and slashing pay and benefits as sharply lower demand cuts into revenue, the company said late Thursday.

ASML announced at SEMICON Japan the first system based on its new NXT lithography platform. The TWINSCAN NXT:1950i provides the increased productivity and enables chip manufacturers to shrink feature sizes to 32 nanometers and beyond in order to reduce costs.

The Netherlands-based provider of lithography systems will trim 10% of its workforce, comprising approximately 1,000 employees who are mainly on temporary contracts, as it looks to cut costs in 2009.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found a way to develop 25nm chip structures with a common lithography process, indicating that chip manufacturers will be able to push out the adoption of an expensive Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography manufacturing process by another chip generation.

In a major change in strategy, Intel has selected Nikon over ASML for a hotly-contested lithography order for the chip giant's 32nm node, according to sources. At 32nm, Nikon has reportedly won the entire lithography business within Intel, leaving ASML out in the cold, source said. The multi-million-dollar order represents Intel's initial scanners, based on immersion lithography. Up until now, Intel had been using "dry" scanners for wafer processing within its fabs.