Canon 2003 Annual Report Download - page 24

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Product Group Report
Akira Tajima
Chief Executive
Optical Products Operations*
Unrelenting focus
on research and
development has put
Canon’s Optical
Products Operations
in position to control
key markets with
leading-edge products.
In the Optical Products Operations, we see a growth area
in our steppers [semiconductor production equipment].
Japan is the main market for our steppers, followed by
South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Until now consumer
spending in the U.S. has been a reliable barometer for chip
demand, but going forward we see Europe as a real growth
market for chips—not in PCs, but in communications
devices, cars and networked appliances.
With the accelerating demand for large LCD screens,
we also anticipate growth in the demand for our mask
aligners. To be frank, this is a market we’re looking to lead.
We’re expanding our development side, spending 100
billion yen in the next three years. Most of this will go into
the research and development of advanced manufacturing
systems, including factory automation systems, inside Japan.
We have a new plant in Ibaraki for manufacturing LCD mask
aligners and a new facility in Utsunomiya, to the north of
Tokyo, for producing several of the equipment’s key com-
ponents. We’re also going to be setting up new R&D teams
in Utsunomiya to develop optical steppers and cameras.
Canon is part of the Japanese-sponsored group on EUV
(Extreme Ultra-Violet) lithography, and at the moment we’re
at the basic research phase. We need to develop new meas-
urement, polishing and coating tools for this new technology.
That’s the price we have to pay for being on the leading
edge. But when we get this technology working, we’ll be
able to get down to the 30nm level from the current
90nm—a huge breakthrough.
One product that our group is particularly pleased with
is our new cassette-type digital radiography system, the
CXDI-50G. It’s portable, so it can be taken directly to the
bedside of an immobilized patient, and the data, since it’s
digital, can be sent instantly via the Internet to a specialist
doctor anywhere in the world. Our cassette-type digital
radiography systems have found uses in veterinary medi-
cine, too, where again the portability of the system enables
on-the-spot examinations that were once impossible.
Finally, a quick look at our series of television broad-
casting lenses. We see China, especially with the coming
Olympics, as a big market for our 100x television broadcast-
ing zoom lens. We already have a dominant market share
worldwide for this class of lens, but we are looking to build
on that.
(
From an interview with Mr. Tajima on January 19, 2004
)
*Group Chief Executive in FY 2003.
Optical Products
22