Nikon and its U.S. subsidiary, Nikon Precision Inc., late today filed another patent infringement suit against ASML in the Northern District of California. The suit charges that ASML infringed upon eight of Nikon patents relating "to primary structures in stepper and scanner machines." Nikon is seeking an injunction and money damages from ASML.

Nikon has already filed separate complaints against ASML in the U.S. International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in December last year (see Dec. 12, 2001 story ). And earlier this month, Nikon filed suits in the Tokyo District Court in Japan and in the Seoul District Court in Korea (see Oct. 11 story ).

Nikon remains confident in the outcome of the litigations and expects that fair competition will be restored to the marketplace.

Officials from ASML have denied the allegations. In response to those moves, ASML has denied the validity of Nikon's patents and filed a separate antitrust and patent infringement claim in April. ASML claimed that Nikon is violating antitrust laws by trying to excluding competitors from the market, and charged Nikon with infringing five ASML patents in the United States.

ASML then filed a suit in Japan in Tokyo District Court charging Nikon with infringing an ASML patent related to a wafer handler and seeking to have Nikon cease manufacturing of the allegedly infringing systems (see Aug. 20 story ).

Both ASML and Nikon are not only battling each other on the legal front, but also in the marketplace. Nikon is the world's largest lithography vendors, followed by ASML and then Canon Inc. in terms of market share, according to analysts.

For months, Nikon and ASML had been competing for a major 193-nm tool order at Intel Corp. Intel also happens to be Nikon's largest customer worldwide.

Reports surfaced that ASML and Nikon have "split" the 193-nm litho order at Intel, sources said. Under the plan, the microprocessor giant plans to use both ASML's TwinScan 1100 and Nikon's S306 tools to process the "critical" layers for its 90-nm chips, sources added.

It is widely believed that Nikon grabbed the 248-nm tool order, which will be used to process the "non-critical" layers at the 90-nm node at Intel, according to sources. On the 193-nm front, Intel will reportedly deploy 15 "litho links" per 90-nm fab. ASML will be used in 8 of the "litho links," while Nikon will be deployed in 7, sources said (see Heard on the Beat, Sept. 7 column ).