Despite fears of a downturn in spending in the semiconductor equipment industry, immersion lithography is keeping ASML buoyant, as the company shipped 16 immersion systems and got new orders for 33 (29 new and four used) in Q2.

"Sales in the second quarter were solid thanks to the strength of our immersion portfolio, as we shipped 16 immersion systems, representing more than 60 percent of our system revenues," said Eric Meurice, president and CEO of ASML.

"Our TWINSCAN XT:1950i immersion lithography increases the performance of our current leading system by 25 per cent, thereby making immersion lithography increasingly affordable for 55nm and 45 nm processes", added Meurice, "beyond immersion, we achieved breakthroughs in our extreme ultraviolet (EUV) program as the productivity of our EUV Alpha Demo Tool is reaching target and light source suppliers are confirming roadmaps enabling system performance well beyond 100 wafers per hour."

In Q208, ASML's net sales of €844m included 31 new and 8 used systems, totalling net system sales of €726 million and net service and field options sales of €118 million.

Net system sales for Q1 2008 included the shipment of 43 new and 7 used machines, totalling €820 million, and net service and field options sales of €99 million.

The Q208 average selling price (ASP) for a new system increased to €21.7 million compared with the Q1 2008 ASP for a new system of €18.7m, reflecting a continuing rise in ASP. The Q2 2008 ASP for all ASML systems sold was €18.6m, compared with the Q1 2008 ASP of €16.4 million.

By mid-08, more than 100 ASML immersion systems were being used by 20 different customers, according to ASML, and ASML immersion systems have imaged nearly 20m wafers to date.

ASML's order backlog as of June 29, 2008 decreased slightly to €1.1m million, totalling 59 systems with an ASP of €18.8m.

In Q308, ASML expects to ship 37 systems with an ASP of €22.7m for new systems and an average selling price for all systems of €15.6m.

Net income for Q2 2008 was €192m up from €145m in the first quarter. Gross margin was 40 per cent, slightly down on Q1.

"Although this level of orders is in line with our earlier expectation of a full year 2008 net sales decrease of about 10 percent versus 2007, the current macro-economic weakness may force our customers to focus only on technology transfers to immersion and delay capacity additions for non-leading edge processes", said Meurice, "in that case, our 2008 net sales may potentially drop by as much as 20 percent versus 2007."

Worldwide trends for lithography are positive, said Meurice. "We expect the 2009 lithography business to be supported by the DRAM ramp-up of 55nm, the healthy revenue growth at our foundry customers - in particular on leading edge processes - and the transition to double patterning lithography by flash memory leaders, will contribute to a positive development mid-term."

See also: Semiconductor sales robust despite economic downturn - Gartner

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