Dutch company ASML began shipping its first EUV digital high aperture lithography machine to Intel late last year. The machine is expected to be assembled in the coming months in Oregon, USA.
ASML plans to ship several of these devices this year and ramp up production in the coming years.
The Dutch company ASML is the only company in the world capable of producing highly complex lithography devices, so-called extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography devices, a technology essential for the production of advanced electronic chips and on which most betting companies today rely.
It is worth noting that many companies still use deep ultraviolet (DUV) technology to produce printing devices with wavelengths between 248 nm and 193 nm with manufacturing precision, because the financial cost is lower than that of deep ultraviolet (EUV) technology. compared to.
ASML did not disclose how many NA high-UV lithography devices it plans to ship this year, but said it has received significant orders for these devices from all the chipmakers in the field, including: Intel, Samsung, TSMC, Micron, and SK Hynix, where the total number of devices currently required is between 10 and 20; This means that the new high digital aperture EUV lithography technology will be widely used in the coming years.
The high numerical aperture UV lithography equipment will enable chipmakers to reduce wavelength dimensions during chip fabrication to 8 nm, a significant improvement over the 13 nm offered by NXE's current low numerical aperture UV dual scanning devices.
However, this improvement comes at a significant financial cost: each Twinscan EXE EUV digital high-slot sells for approximately $380 million, more than double the current price of $183 million for the Twinscan NXE.
Intel is expected to move to high-NA EUV devices in its 18A production process between 2026 and 2027, while Chinese Renaissance analysts estimate that TSMC plans to move these devices to 1nm manufacturing within 2030 - the exact resolution for use.