David Lammers

Canon Goes Wet with Ichikawa at the Helm
November 28, 2007

Canon Inc., according to a reliable source, has shipped its initial AS7 ArF immersion scanners to customers in Japan, a twin-stage system that the source said differs from what Canon’s competitors are offering in terms of the stage design, meniscus control, and optics.

In 2004, Canon intended to offer a new single-stage platform, first with a KrF source, with a plan to adapt it to the shorter ArF wavelength.

Then, Canon’s CEO Fujio Mitarai put senior managing director Junji Ichikawa -- a board member since 1997 and chief director of the optical business -- in charge of the scanner platform project. Ichikawa is the company’s chief hardware platform architect, who worked first on laser beam printers, then digital cameras, creating world-class products in both of those highly competitive segments.

Ichikawa immediately scrapped the single-stage design, demanding that Canon’s scanner designers create a two-stage platform that would support both wet and dry tools capable of both 45 nm and 32 nm exposures. The dry version, called the AS5, went on the market in the second quarter.

With 1.35 NA optics for the wet system, the AS7 is Canon’s first twin-stage immersion ArF scanner. The liquid handling is said to be sharply different from Nikon’s approach. Canon’s “Liquid Film Flow” transfers the wafer between the two stages without turning off the flow of water.

According to a source at Canon, many customers are looking for a better immersion system that will reduce defects caused by water droplets drying at the meniscus.

“People have turned to ASML, but that doesn’t mean they are happy with the level of defects. We can win customers back with a newer product,” the source said.

Also, customers such as Samsung Electronics naturally seek to play one litho supplier off against another, maintaining price leverage in the increasingly expensive lithography sector.

“We have a director with a vision, a product that works, and the funding and staffing to pull it off. For Canon, it’s the same kind of comeback story that happened in digital cameras, which now account for a big share of the company’s revenues,” the source said.

Can it happen? Will Ichikawa turn around Canon’s fortunes in the ArF market, which is where nearly all of the profits are?

Canon has a history of hanging in there in tough markets, competing against H-P in printers, against Nikon in cameras, and against Xerox and Ricoh in office copiers. Starting now, Canon will have to show its hand and convince customers and analysts that it has a superior leading-edge lithography product, something that the chip industry hasn’t seen from Canon for too many years.

Posted by David Lammers on November 28, 2007 | Comments (0)