Japan’s export restrictions threaten to marginalize Nikon in top litho segment

Presenting its third-quarter results earlier this year, Nikon hinted that it’s losing Intel as a customer. “In the past, more than 80 percent of sales of our ArF lithography systems were concentrated at one core North American customer,” a Q&A transcript published by the Japanese company reads.

Nikon expects to install 13 ArF systems at customers this fiscal year, without specifying the share of dry and immersion. Overall, it sold 9 new and 14 used lithography machines in the first three quarters. Together with 37 litho systems for flat screens, these represent a total value of 1.12 billion euros (162.9 billion yen).