The “war” to find the next, best type of beam to shoot at silicon wafers was only one of three contests underway over the future of lithography. The second battle was commercial, over which company would build the next generation of lithography tools. The enormous cost of developing new lithography equipment pushed the industry toward concentration. One or at most two companies would dominate the market. In the United States, GCA had been liquidated, while Silicon Valley Group, a lithography firm descended from Perkin Elmer, lagged far behind the market leaders, Canon and Nikon. U.S.
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