Tokyo-March 25, 2010 - Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) announced today that the company has begun accepting orders for the Tactras™ RLSA™ Etch, a new etching system that offers revolutionary breakthrough plasma technology. The system has been evaluated at major U.S. semiconductor manufacturers, and is scheduled for use in mass-production in the near future.

For the 22nm generation and beyond, the industry is facing several etching process issues, including profile, uniformity and selectivity control as well as plasma induced damage. To address these challenges, the Tactras™ RLSA™ Etch couples radical-rich etching and a truly decoupled low electron temperature diffusion plasma to minimize damage and recess and to provide superior profile, uniformity and selectivity.

In addition to a strong presence in BEOL etch processing, the Tactras™ RLSA™ Etch will enable TEL to focus on a wider range of solutions, targeting transistor related processes (FEOL).

“The introduction of the Tactras™ RLSA™ Etch will address our customers’ needs for the fabrication of their most advanced product lines” said Hiroshi Takenaka, president of Tokyo Electron Limited. “We are very pleased to introduce a system that delivers an optimal advantage for FEOL etch processing.”

The system price ranges from ¥500M to ¥1,000M, depending on the configuration, and 20 unit sales are expected in the first year.

Originally developed for satellite broadcasting, RLSA is a technology that uses a special antenna to generate high-density, low-electron-temperature plasma to respond to the need for processing large-diameter wafers and achieve higher uniformity and greater miniaturization.