Japanese imaging firm Canon desires to recapture its former glory in the semiconductor industry. And to try this, it’s going after the chipmaking tools made by ASML Holding, Europe’s most valuable tech company and the one producer of the instruments that take advantage of cutting-edge semiconductors. Canon has spent a decade testing a less expensive option to make superior chips, and now it thinks its resolution might be able to go as quickly as later this 12 months.
“We would like to start shipping this year or next year, said Hiroaki Takeishi, head of Canon’s industrial group, to the Financial Times. “We want to do it while the market is hot.”
Canon desires to place its new nanoimprint lithography technology as a less expensive various to the acute ultraviolet lithography (EUV) chipmaking machines used to take advantage of superior semiconductors. The market is presently dominated by Dutch firm ASML. Whereas the corporate’s machines are costly, costing over $150 million apiece, they’re additionally important to creating probably the most cutting-edge chips, designated as 5-nanometer chips or smaller.
Nanoimprint lithography stamps the chip’s design immediately onto a silicon wafer, whereas EUV as a substitute makes use of gentle to etch circuit patterns.
Canon has spent over a decade making an attempt to develop its personal chipmaking expertise, and says it has solely now made it commercially viable. The corporate claimed to the Financial Times that the expertise makes use of considerably much less energy than ASML’s EUV machines, whereas being “one digit” cheaper. Canon has beforehand claimed that its expertise can already produce a 5nm chip, and the corporate is concentrating on a 2nm chip, probably the most cutting-edge chip that firms like TSMC and Samsung hope to mass produce.
Most shoppers could know Canon for its merchandise like cameras and printers, however the firm additionally has a historical past as a provider of semiconductor manufacturing tools. But it fell behind ASML within the race to develop lithography expertise.
Twenty years in the past, Canon was ranked 178th on the Fortune International 500, which ranks the world’s largest firms by income, with $23.4 billion in gross sales at then-current change charges. The corporate fell to #444 within the 2022 version of the checklist, with $32 billion in income, earlier than falling off the checklist totally final 12 months.
Canon admitted to the Financial Times that it might want to persuade clients, already used to EUV, to change to the brand new expertise.
“Since the existing chip manufacturing processes are optimised for EUVs, there will obviously be various difficulties in terms of bringing in new technology,” Takeishi mentioned.
One other massive query is whether or not Canon will be capable to promote this expertise to Chinese language clients. Japan has signed onto the U.S. drive to restrict exports of superior semiconductors and chipmaking tools to China. (The Netherlands has joined as properly, limiting ASML’s sales to Chinese language clients). These controls are encouraging Chinese language firms to stock up on no matter equipment they’ll get to be able to enhance their very own home chipmaking functionality.
