Rigaku Innovative Technologies Marks 25th Anniversary With EUV Lithography Push

AUBURN HILLS, MI--(Marketwire - November 01, 2010) - Rigaku Innovative Technologies (RIT) today celebrated its 25th anniversary of leadership in X-ray optics by announcing further expansion into the optics market for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL).

RIT plans to continue supporting the industry by supplying Osmic® Coatings, a line of multilayer coated optics that are essential to EUVL. The company has been involved in EUVL since the mid-90s, when as Osmic Inc. it provided development optics for micro exposure tools (MET) and multilayer masks for industry-wide efforts that demonstrated the feasibility of EUVL.

"At RIT, we are scientific innovators and world class manufacturers," said John McGill, RIT's President and COO. "Our next goal for company growth is certain: to become the leading supplier of optical components in the emerging market for EUVL, the next generation of semiconductor manufacturing."

Today, EUVL is widely believed to be the only next-generation lithography process suitable for highly advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and is targeted for volume manufacturing by 2014 -- a result partly attributable to RIT's decades of enabling technology.

"Osmic supplied optics for EUVL community from the very beginning, and we are now ready to further expand our manufacturing to support the industry's transition of EUVL into manufacturing phase," said Jim Rodriguez, vice president of business development.

Added McGill, "The key reason for RIT being successful in business for 25 years is our unrelenting push for innovative solutions and the ruthless obsolescence of our own products before our competitors. This combination allows us to remain a leader in our marketplace, not a follower."

RIT's optical products are critical in global high-tech manufacturing:

• Tens of thousands of RIT's multilayer optics are used in X-ray spectrometers and diffractometers.
• RIT's synchrotron optics and neutron mirrors are utilized in synchrotrons and neutron diffraction facilities worldwide.
• Hundreds of RIT's beam modules are installed and operating in state-of-the-art semiconductor fab metrology systems and pharmaceutical crystal protein research facilities.
• The company's small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) cameras are installed at more than 30 sites, leading the development of major new analytical research areas in nanoscale structural and biological studies.

A subsidiary of Rigaku Corporation, RIT also develops pharmaceutical products to enable better understanding of protein and virus structures, leading to new medicines for treating diabetes, cancer and AIDS. In materials, RIT offers products used in automobiles, computers, construction, farming, and many other areas. The company operates a 50,000 square foot manufacturing facility with 24 x 7 production capability.