GIGAPHOTON Honored with 2015 "Toshiba Partnership Award" from TOSHIBA Semiconductor & Storage Company Yokkaichi Operations
January 25 2015 - 7:00PM
Business Wire
Gigaphoton’s Green Innovations, Including
Helium-Free Purge Process, Win High Recognition
Gigaphoton Inc., a major lithography light source manufacturer,
today announced that the company has been recognized with a 2015
Partnership Award from Toshiba Semiconductor & Storage
Company’s Yokkaichi Operations, a major world production base of
NAND flash memory devices. Gigaphoton received this award for its
efforts in developing innovative solutions for reducing the
consumption of rare gas, thereby contributing to a great reduction
of materials cost.
Gigaphoton has been providing semiconductor device manufacturers
with its green innovations, including its “Helium-Free Purge
Process” and “eTGM Solution” that allow a great reduction in the
consumption of rare gases, including helium and neon, used for the
excimer lasers incorporated into semiconductor lithography tools.
Gigaphoton’s green innovations have been highly recognized by
Toshiba: Mr. Tomoharu Watanabe, General Manager of the Yokkaichi
Operations awarded a trophy and certificate to Gigaphoton Inc., on
January 6.
“We are honored to receive this award from one of the leading
semiconductor device manufacturers, Toshiba Semiconductor &
Storage Company’s Yokkaichi Operations,” commented Hitoshi Tomaru,
President and CEO of Gigaphoton, “Last year, our green innovations
were well accepted, and we were designated as a major vendor by the
world’s six leading semiconductor device manufacturers. We are
committed to maximizing our effort for providing technologies and
products that are more productive for our customers.”
Gigaphoton developed a helium-free purge process that uses
nitrogen, thereby reducing helium consumption by 99% (compared with
the conventional purge process), and started marketing this process
in 2013. In addition, the company developed the eTGM Solution, a
new technology that reduces neon gas consumption by up to 50%; in
2014, it began providing this function free of charge until the
supply of neon gas has returned to the normal condition. These
technologies have been systematically developed and provided bases
on the EcoPhoton™ program promoted by Gigaphoton to reduce the
consumption of resources. The fruits of this EcoPhoton™ program
have been highly recognized by the users, and currently are being
introduced by major DRAM manufacturers.
About the EcoPhoton™ Program
The EcoPhoton™ program is a roadmap started in 2003 to implement
Green Innovations for providing environmentally-friendly and
user-friendly lithography light sources. The focus is on detailed
analyses of three key cost-of-ownership (CoO) metrics: cost of
consumables (CoC), cost of downtime (CoD), and cost of environment
(CoE). The program aims at achieving continuous reduction of these
costs by developing innovative green technologies.
About Gigaphoton
Since it was founded in 2000, Gigaphoton has developed and
delivered user-friendly, high-performance DUV laser light sources
used by major semiconductor manufacturers in the Pan-Asian, US and
European regions.
Gigaphoton leads the way with cost-effective, highly productive
lithography sources for high-volume production. With a global
business outlook, Gigaphoton strives to be the world’s number-one
lithography light source provider, focusing on end-user needs in
every phase of its business — from research and development to
manufacturing, to best-in-class reliability and world-class
customer support.
See the previous press release about helium-free purge
process.
See the previous press release about eTGM.
Gigaphoton Inc.Katsutomo Terashima, +81-285-37-6931Corporate
Planning Divisionweb_info@gigaphoton.com