Press release
Edited: 2008/02/15
Paris, January 17th, 2008, NANO-UV announces an €8.7M investment from the RAK Investment Authority to support business of a next generation light source for the semiconductor industry. NANO-UV has secured an €8.7M investment from the RAK Investment Authority from the United Arab Emirates to support business development. A high technology French company, NANO-UV is commissioned to commercialise a new type of light source, which can be used for high volume manufacturing of microchips in the next generation, based on Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) lithography.
NANO-UV has leveraged on the technical success of a French research company, EPPRA. Operating within European projects, EPPRA has invented and perfected a unique compact EUV source with built-in photon collecting optics based on damage-proof plasma structure, an Intrinsic Source Collect Module (i-SoCoMo). The special properties of this source-collector structure allow a large number of these units to be multiplexed together to create a single very high power light source. NANO-UV's I-SoCoMo features a scalable modular design with low ownership cost.
ASML, Canon and Nikon, the three lithographic scanner suppliers that equip the world wide microprocessor and memory chips electronics manufacturing industry, have changed their lithography system from 193 nm wavelength to the 13.5-nm EUV wavelength to support the continuing demand for higher integration density on microchips. NANO-UV's light source supports the next generation technology extending to the 22nm and 16nm nodes.
NANO-UV, in partnership with RAK Investment Authority, has acquired total rights from EPPRA to launch the production of EUV sources based on the revolutionary i-SoCoMo. NANO-UV has sold the first product to CEA (the French Atomic Energy Commission) at its Electronics and Information Technology Laboratory (LETI) and is in negotiation with the French Government to re-launch an EUV programme with NANO-UV's new capabilities.