In a conference call with analysts here today, Papken S. Der Torrossian, president and chief executive of SVG, confirmed that the company has pushed out the deliveries of its Micrascan 193 high-numerical aperture (HNA) scanners from this month, to July of this year.

"It's late," Der Torrossian said. "We would have liked to have shipped them in April. But the good news is that our competitors are late as well."

Apparently, SVG has been able to ship its older-generation, 193-nm tools, which are said to have a numerical-aperture of 0.45. But the company has delayed the shipments of its newer 193-nm tools--a move that will impact several chip makers, notably its largest lithography customer: Intel.

Last year, SVG announced a $100 million order for its Micrascan 193 tool from "a leading microprocessor manufacturer," of which sources believe is Intel. Cypress, IBM, and other chip makers also use lithography systems from SVG.

Intel and SVG are also jointly developing a line of scanners based on 157-nm technology, as part of a deal signed by the companies. During the last quarter, SVG received four new orders for its cutting-edge, 157-nm scanners, reportedly from Intel.

SVG's Micrascan 193 HNA system incorporates a new platform that improves throughput while providing a resolution of better than 130-nm. With an overlay performance of 25-nm, and a depth of focus of 0.40-micron, the tool will also enable chip makers to develop devices at the 100-nm node, SVG claimed.

Like SVG, however, other tool suppliers are also having problems in the 193-nm arena, due in part to a shortage of a lithography-lens material called calcium-fluoride (see March 2 story ).

ASM Lithography, Canon Inc., Nikon Inc., and SVG have been shipping their respective 193-nm tools in small quantities for R&D purposes since 1999. But vendors are still unable to deliver these high-priced systems in large volumes to their chip customers--most of which are currently attempting to step up their use of 193-nm tool for production purposes, sources said.

Chip makers are able to extend the life of their existing krypton-fluoride, 248-nm lithography tools, but these older-generation systems are quickly running out of steam. While some experts believe that 248-nm tools will process devices down to 0.13-micron or so, the newer 193-nm scanners are geared to more easily deliver chips at 0.10-micron and below node.

Tool vendors blame the 193-nm shipment problems on suppliers of the lens materials, which is in severe shortages. At present, the merchant suppliers of lens material include Corning Inc., Saint-Gobain Crystals & Detectors and Schott ML GmbH.

But most, if not, all of these merchant suppliers cannot keep up with OEM demand for this critical material, analysts said. This lens material is required to hold up under the higher concentrated heat generated by new and advanced ArF excimer lasers. Traditional quartz glass lenses, used in the current 248-nm generation of exposure tools, do not provide high transmittance at 193-nm wavelength, analysts said.

SVG reportedly obtains its 193-nm lens material from Schott, but is also working with other suppliers, such as Corning. However, Corning is still in the prototype stage with its lens material and will not ship their first products until next year.

ASML, Nikon and Canon also use merchant suppliers of lens materials, reporting including Schott. But Nikon and Canon have taken matters into their own hands by setting plans to develop their own, separate lens-material factories in Japan.