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Canon plans to disrupt chipmaking with low-cost "stamp" machine

Company is challenging industry leader ASML with its nanoprint lithography tech.

Canon hopes to start shipments of new low-cost chip-making machines as early as this year, as the Japanese company best known for its cameras and printers tries to undercut longtime industry leader ASML in providing the tools to make leading-edge semiconductors. If successful, Canon’s “nanoimprint” technology could give back Japanese manufacturers some of the edge they ceded to rivals in South Korea, Taiwan and, increasingly, China over the past three decades. But the machines made by the Dutch tech company are also the most expensive part of the manufacturing process, costing more than $150 million each, and there are long lead times for delivery, giving Canon some space to market its technology.

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