The Japanese consortium, dubbed the Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography System Development Association (EUVA), plans to begin the development of the platform and optics for the proposed EUV tool this year, said Hideo Setoya, executive director of the Association of Super-Advanced Electronics Technologies (ASET). ASET is a separate chip-making consortium in Japan.

"The initial prototype EUV tool will be developed by the end of 2005," Setoya said during a presentation at the 6th International Forum on Semiconductor Technology (IFST) in Monterey this week. IFST is co-sponsored by International Sematech and the Semiconductor Research Corp.

Both ASET and EUVA are developing EUV technologies, but it appears that the EUVA is taking the lead role in the development. Formed in late 2001, Canon, Nikon, and other chip-equipment and IC makers are part of the group.

The two Japanese lithography rivals will "collaborate on the optics and some of the metrology of the optics," said Gil Varnell, president and CEO of Nikon's R&D organization, Nikon Research Corp. of America, based in Belmont, Calif.

Nikon and Canon will take the technology and separately develop their own EUV tools for sale in the market, Varnell told SBN at IFST.

Nikon is also developing a rival technology, dubbed electron-beam projection lithography (see today's story ). Prior to the formation of the EUVA, Canon was already developing an EUV tool, as well as a direct-write maskless system for next-generation lithography applications.