[January 25, 2015]

GIGAPHOTON Honored with 2015 "Toshiba Partnership Award" from TOSHIBA Semiconductor & Storage Company Yokkaichi Operations

Gigaphoton Inc., a major lithography light source manufacturer, today announced that the company has been recognized with a 2015 Partnership Award from Toshiba (News - Alert) Semiconductor & Storage Company's Yokkaichi Operations, a major world production base of NAND flash memory devices. Gigaphoton received this award for its efforts in developing innovative solutions for reducing the consumption of rare gas, thereby contributing to a great reduction of materials cost.

Gigaphoton has been providing semiconductor device manufacturers with its green innovations, including its "Helium-Free Purge Process" and "eTGM Solution" that allow a great reduction in the consumption of rare gases, including helium and neon, used for the excimer lasers incorporated into semiconductor lithography tools. Gigaphoton's green innovations have been highly recognized by Toshiba: Mr. Tomoharu Watanabe, General Manager of the Yokkaichi Operations awarded a trophy and certificate to Gigaphoton Inc., on January 6.

"We are honored to receive this award from one of the leading semiconductor device manufacturers, Toshiba Semiconductor & Storage Company's Yokkaichi Operations," commented Hitoshi Tomaru, President and CEO of Gigaphoton, "Last year, our green innovations were well accepted, and we were designated as a major vendor by the world's six leading semiconductor device manufacturers. We are committed to maximizing our effort for providing technologies and products that are more productive for our customers."

Gigaphoton developed a helium-free purge prcess that uses nitrogen, thereby reducing helium consumption by 99% (compared with the conventional purge process), and started marketing this process in 2013. In addition, the company developed the eTGM Solution, a new technology that reduces neon gas consumption by up to 50%; in 2014, it began providing this function free of charge until the supply of neon gas has returned to the normal condition. These technologies have been systematically developed and provided bases on the EcoPhoton™ program promoted by Gigaphoton to reduce the consumption of resources. The fruits of this EcoPhoton™ program have been highly recognized by the users, and currently are being introduced by major DRAM manufacturers.

About the EcoPhoton™ Program

The EcoPhoton™ program is a roadmap started in 2003 to implement Green Innovations for providing environmentally-friendly and user-friendly lithography light sources. The focus is on detailed analyses of three key cost-of-ownership (CoO) metrics: cost of consumables (CoC), cost of downtime (CoD), and cost of environment (CoE). The program aims at achieving continuous reduction of these costs by developing innovative green technologies.

About Gigaphoton

Since it was founded in 2000, Gigaphoton has developed and delivered user-friendly, high-performance DUV laser light sources used by major semiconductor manufacturers in the Pan-Asian, US and European regions.

Gigaphoton leads the way with cost-effective, highly productive lithography sources for high-volume production. With a global business outlook, Gigaphoton strives to be the world's number-one lithography light source provider, focusing on end-user needs in every phase of its business - from research and development to manufacturing, to best-in-class reliability and world-class customer support.

See the previous press release about helium-free purge process.

See the previous press release about eTGM.

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