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Gigaphoton has announced hTGM for ArF, an on-site gas-recycling system for semiconductor fabs that use ArF excimer lasers. The company says one unit can connect to as many as five lasers and reduce gas consumption by up to 470 kiloliters per year. Tom’s Hardware reports a 50% neon recycling-rate claim, but Gigaphoton’s announcement does not explain how that rate was measured, and no independent validation of hTGM’s performance is established in the sources reviewed.
What Gigaphoton announced
hTGM for ArF is industrial fab equipment, not a consumer device. It is designed to collect used gas in semiconductor fabs, recycle it, and return it to ArF excimer-laser operations. Gigaphoton says one unit can connect to up to five ArF lasers and reduce gas consumption by up to 470 kiloliters annually. These are vendor specifications, not independently verified operating results. Gigaphoton’s September 2026 announcement also says hTGM for ArF shares hardware with its hTGM for KrF system, which the company says can help production ramp-up.
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The company frames the system as a way to mitigate rare-gas procurement risks and support supply-chain resilience. That is Gigaphoton’s stated aim, not evidence that customers have already realized savings or improved supply security. The announcement names no customer installations and does not provide pricing, uptime, maintenance intervals, or a broad deployment schedule. Gigaphoton’s news feed lists the announcement.
What the reported 50% recovery rate means—and does not mean
Tom’s Hardware reported a 50% neon recycling-rate claim attributed to Gigaphoton. The primary announcement reviewed here does not spell out that percentage. It also does not specify the rate’s denominator, test protocol, operating period, fab configuration, or supporting customer data. Treat the 50% as a reported company claim, not an independently measured or guaranteed result.
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The 470-kiloliter figure is a separate measure: Gigaphoton describes it as an annual reduction in gas consumption per unit, with “up to” qualifying the figure. It should not be converted into a guaranteed quantity of fresh neon saved at a particular fab. Actual savings would depend on the installation and operating conditions, which the announcement does not detail.
How neon recycling fits into ArF lithography
ArF excimer lasers are used in semiconductor lithography. A gas-recycling system can collect discharged process gas, remove contaminants, analyze the mixture, and reconstitute it to meet the light source’s requirements. The technical challenge is not just recovering gas: the recycled mixture must also satisfy purity and performance specifications for continued laser operation.
A 2017 Cymer technical paper describes an in-fab system that filters and analyzes gas, reconstitutes mixtures, and checks recycled gas against ArF light-source specifications. Cymer’s authors reported that their system could purify and reuse more than 90% of discharged process gas, with no significant difference in laser performance between facility-supplied and recycled gas. Those findings concern Cymer’s system; they do not establish hTGM’s recovery rate or performance.
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Other suppliers and technical papers describe rare-gas recycling for lithography, but the available figures are not a head-to-head comparison. In particular, the sources do not establish a shared measurement protocol or matched deployment conditions.
| System or source | Reported performance or configuration | Evidence and limits |
|---|---|---|
| Gigaphoton hTGM for ArF | Reported 50% neon recycling-rate claim; one unit can connect to up to five ArF lasers and reduce gas consumption by up to 470 kiloliters per year. | The 50% figure is reported by Tom’s Hardware as a company claim. Gigaphoton’s announcement supplies the capacity and connection figures but does not provide a measurement basis or independent validation. Gigaphoton; Tom’s Hardware. |
| Kanken Techno recycler | SEMI Taiwan’s 2026 event listing says a recycler was operating at a fab, connected to three ArF lasers, and achieving a rate above 90%. | The information appears in a supplier presentation listing, not a controlled comparison. The page says certification with both excimer-laser makers was underway. SEMI Taiwan event page. |
| Wonik Holdings rare-gas recycling system | The company describes filtering, purification, analysis, storage, compression, filling, and high-purity neon purification; a comparable quantified rate is not stated. | The company page does not provide a comparable measured performance figure. Wonik Holdings. |
| Cymer system described in a 2017 paper | Cymer’s authors report purification and reuse of more than 90% of discharged process gas and stable ArF performance with recycled gas. | This is a Cymer-authored result for its own system, not a benchmark for Gigaphoton or the other suppliers. Cymer technical paper. |
To assess any installation, fabs would need comparable data on the recovery-rate measurement basis, fresh-gas reduction versus throughput, supported laser count and type, gas purity and laser performance, deployment and certification status, maintenance and uptime, and total operating cost. The cited sources do not provide a matched set of figures across vendors.
What is established about availability and customer results
Gigaphoton’s announcement establishes that it has announced hTGM for ArF and describes its intended use and stated specifications. It does not establish broad deployment, named customer adoption, realized savings, system price, or operating reliability. The same caution applies to treating the reported rate as a fab-wide outcome: the available announcement does not provide customer operating data.
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