Abstract

We have developed a long life 5 × 10⁹ shot KrF Excimer Laser for mass production. Though there have been a lot of KrF excimer lasers which include parts with long life span, our laser system is the first KrF excimer laser which has a long enough lifetime that it can be useful for mass production as a whole. Our KrF excimer laser system has attained a window life of 2.1 × 10⁹ shots (Fig. 1) with a gas life of 1.6 × 10⁸ shots, in total, a chamber life of 5 × 10⁹ shots (Fig. 2), maintaining normal operation of 40 mJ/ pulse at 600 Hz (24W).

© 1995 IEEE