Search
Home ＞ Corporate Voices ＞ Gigaphoton Inc.
| Company Name | Gigaphoton Inc. |
|---|---|
| Address | 〒323-8558 400 Yokokurashinden, Oyama City, Tochigi Prefecture |
| TEL | 0285-28-8410（Main） |
| Website | http://www.gigaphoton.com/?lang=en?lang=en ※Click to open a separate window |
By keeping its first priority onto the market needs always, Gigaphoton Inc. continuously challenges toward the global No.1 on the foundation of global business strategy in every phase of research and development, manufacturing, and technical support. We visited their head office in Oyama City, and interviewed .
【Excimer Laser Accumulated Total Shipment of 1,000 units】
【Inspection for Excimer Laser (Clean room)】
Gigaphoton Inc. (herein after Gigaphoton) was founded in 2000, as a state-of-the-art enterprise to support the semiconductor industry in the 21 century.
Since then, it commercialized a series of the world first cutting-edge excimer lasers for semiconductor lithography equipment, and achieved the 1,000th shipment of excimer laser for lithography in 2011.
Excimer laser for semiconductor lithography equipment means, a light source assembled in lithography equipment for manufacturing semiconductors.
A semiconductor is made from micro-electronic parts assembled on the top of the base plate, lithography light sources are necessary to project (develop) such as circuit patterns to the top of silicone wafer which become the base plate of semiconductor.
To increase an integration degree of semiconductor, a shorter waves of lithography light sources are required, and currently excimer laser for generating ultraviolet light became major light sources.
Flat-screen TV, Mobile phone, PC and so on, semiconductors are assembled into a variety of electronics equipment indispensable for our living, our excimer laser is used for manufacturing most of those products.
The excimer lasers are available in ArF light source (wavelength 193nm ; 1nm=millionth of 1mm) and KrF light source (wavelength 248nm), we manufacture a variety of series products in different frequencies and powers.
Because semiconductors are manufactured in a clean environment, our lasers are also assembled in a clean room.
For an integration degree of semiconductor, it is said that current ArF laser light source can provides up to half pitch ( a half of wiring line pitch) of around 25nm. To provide further narrower line width, we are actively working on the development and commercialization of EUV (Extreme Ultra-Violet) light source which getting attracted attentions as the next-generation lithography light source.
Our predecessor is Komatsu Ltd. Excimer Division, and they were also located in Oyama. Oyama was selected because of closer distances to customers we were dealing with.
Our excimer lasers for semiconductor lithography equipment has been sold to manufactures of lithography equipment in which excimer lasers are equipped, and there are only three companies in the world to make such equipment. ASML in Netherland, Canon and Nikon in Japan. Within those three partners, two Japanese companies are located in the Kitakanto region, it is one of the reasons for selecting Oyama where nearest Komatsu's manufacturing plant was located since that time.
To transport products, for shipment to Canon, we take National Route 4, and for shipment to Nikon take National Route 50. Oyama is a good location with access for wide main roads connecting in all directions north, south, east and west of Tochigi.
As a reference, we ship our products to ASML in the Netherland from Komatsu or Narita Airport.
We have many visitors from outside of Tochigi including abroad, Oyama is a very convenient place for the access of human transportation too, by having a station for Shinkansen in a short distance from Tokyo.
Also Tochigi has less natural disasters, it is advantageous that almost no need to worry about earthquakes or other natural disasters.
Only two companies are manufacturing excimer laser for semiconductor lithography equipment, and one of them is Gigaphoton.
Our global market share used be only few % when Gigaphoton was established in 2000,
it had reached to 10 % in 2003 and achieved almost 50% in 2010 at the 10th anniversary of the company.
Such high market share is a result of customer's appreciation for the quality of our products. Since semiconductor manufacturing equipment is very expensive, a few seconds of line-stop leads to a big loss. Under such pressure, our products provide high operation ratio of 99.6% for 24 hours base (only a few hours in 3 months period (2,200 hours)) without stopping even during the maintenance period. We believe, we could have grown till this height by obtaining customer's appreciations and supports for providing solid and reliable high quality of products without failures.
Firstly, cleaning activities for local community. We periodically clean public roads outside the premises. Also after 2010, we cosponsor in Himawari (sunflower) Festival in Nogi Town. For employment aspect, we are supporting football players in JFL Tochigi UVA who working hard in the company in daytime and playing soccer in nighttime.
In order to let people know our company well, we further actively promote our local contribution activities, please look for our activities.
Gigaphoton continuously strives to be a proud company in Tochigi.
Since, we are still a young and growing company, please come and join to work with us.
We are always aiming to be global No.1. In striving to improve ourselves further by encouraging each other, we would like to be a well known company in Tochigi.
