Vendor Spotlight:

INTEL GRANTS CYMER $20 MILLION FOR EUV TECH FUNDING

Cymer, Inc., a leading supplier of deep ultraviolet (DUV) light sources used in semiconductor manufacturing, and Intel Corporation announced they have signed a development agreement for Intel to provide US$20 million in funding over the next three years to accelerate development of production- worthy extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography light sources.

EUV lithography is positioned for commercial deployment in 2009, but several issues must be addressed to keep the technology on track. A key issue confronting the commercialization efforts of EUV lithography is the ability to increase source output power to meet the wafer throughput requirements of high volume manufacturing, while minimizing the cost of ownership for EUV lithography tools.

"Accelerating EUV technology development to enable its successful implementation in high volume manufacturing for the 32nm node in 2009 is a critical mission at Intel," said Peter Silverman, Intel Fellow and director of Intel's Lithography Capital Equipment Development. "This agreement will further enable Intel and Cymer to concentrate on the critical technology challenges and on delivering a cost-effective, commercial EUV source solution to produce development tools in 2006 and meet the industry's 2009 production timeline."

"Cymer welcomes this opportunity to accelerate and intensify our EUV development efforts and further validate our EUV source expertise," said Bob Akins, Cymer's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "In addition to augmenting our current EUV R&D efforts, this will help enhance our technology leadership and competitive edge in the semiconductor capital-equipment marketplace."

Further details of the agreement were not disclosed.

About Intel Corporation

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at http://www.intel.com/pressroom.