 The most widespread industrial application of ArF excimer lasers has been in deep-ultraviolet photolithography for the manufacturing of microelectronic devices (i.e., semiconductor integrated circuits or “chips”).From the early 1960s through the mid-1980s, Hg-Xe lamps had been used for lithography at 436, 405 and 365 nm wavelengths.However, with the semiconductor industry’s need for both finer resolution (for denser and faster chips) and higher production throughput (for lower costs), the lamp-based lithography tools were no longer able to meet the industry’s requirements.