Two Companies Join LEEPL Technology Consortium

The LEEPL Technology Consortium, established by TOKYO SEIMITSU Co., Ltd. (Mr. Hideo Ohtsubo, Chairman and CEO) together with its subsidiary company, LEEPL Corporation and Sony Corporation, today announced the addition of two new member companies. This brings the total membership of the LEEPL Technology Consortium to 28 companies.

1. New members

The new member companies are: SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. (semiconductor device manufacturer) and Leica Microsystems Japan (semiconductor equipment manufacturer).

* Leica Microsystems Japan is expected to contribute in the field of pattern position accuracy measuring equipment and mask writing technology.

2. LEEPL Technology Consortium

The Consortium was formed on June 14, 2001 with the objective of accelerating development and dissemination of next-generation lithography technology. Initial participants were 13 companies including semiconductor device makers, semiconductor manufacturing equipment makers, mask makers and resist makers.
Subsequently, 6 additional companies joined the Consortium in 2001, and 7 more by May 2002, making a total of 26 active participants. With the two companies newly joined, the total number of active participants is now 28. The full list of 28 current member companies is Sony Corporation, NEC Corporation, RHOM CO., LTD., Texas Instruments Incorporated, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., SHARP CORPORATION, Hitachi Ltd., Seiko Epson Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, TOSHIBA CORPORATION, United Microelectronics Corporation, SANYO Electric Co., Ltd, NTT Advanced Technology Corporation, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd., TOPPAN PRINTING CO., LTD., HOYA CORPORATION, TOKYO OHKA KOGYO CO., LTD., JSR Corporation, FUJIFILM Arch Co., Ltd., NuFlare Technology Inc., Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd., SHIPLEY FAR EAST LTD., NIPPON CONTROL SYSTEM CORPORATION, Leica Microsystems Japan, NaWoTec GmbH, JEOL Ltd., LEEPL Corporation and TOKYO SEIMITSU Co., Ltd.
The basic performance of the first LEEPL beta machine (which meets the requirements for design node 65nm) is now under evaluation inside Sony Corporation, aiming at establishing the LEEPL lithography process. The feedback is utilized for the development of mass production model. In compatible with this, the second beta machine is equipped in "LEEPL Technology Consortium Evaluation Laboratory" in Hachioji factory of Tokyo Seimitsu Co., Ltd., and the evaluation and establishment of LEEPL lithography process is being done there as well.

The Consortium will continue to aim at accelerating the development of the nextgeneration lithography technology "LEEPL", and its dissemination.