Canon Inc. plans to price its new chipmaking gear at a fraction of the cost of ASML Holding NV’s best lithography machines, seeking to make inroads in the cutting-edge equipment now playing a central role in the US-China tech rivalry. The Tokyo-based company’s new nanoimprint technology would open up a way for smaller semiconductor makers to produce advanced chips, now almost wholly the domain of the sector’s biggest firms, Chief Executive Officer Fujio Mitarai said. “The price will have one digit less than ASML’s EUVs,” said the 88-year-old, now on his third stint as Canon’s president after last stepping back from day-to-day operations in 2016. He added that a final pricing decision hasn’t been made. Veldhoven, Netherlands-based ASML is the only supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography tools, the world’s most advanced chipmaking machines costing hundreds of millions of dollars each. The product of decades of research and investment, EUV rigs are essential for mass-producing the fastest and most energy-efficient chips, which cram millions of transistors into every square millimeter of silicon. Only a handful of cash-rich companies can afford to invest in the tools, which are now under scrutiny for their linchpin status in the tech supply chain. ASML is banned from exporting EUV systems to Chinese customers, following US pressure on its allies to restrict technology flows to Beijing. That’s fueled hope for Canon’s new tools, which came to market last month. Tokyo’s chipmaking export curbs, which were expanded in July, do not explicitly name nanoimprint lithography.
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