ASML to Adapt High-NA EUV Tools for Large AI Chips with Industry Giants

ASML Holding N.V. announced plans to work with its major customers to enable its most advanced lithography tools to produce the large-format chips essential for data centers and artificial intelligence applications, according to a Reuters report.

Overcoming a Size Limitation

The Dutch company is the sole manufacturer of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, which print circuits onto silicon wafers. While its current, widely used EUV systems can produce chips up to approximately 800 square millimeters—a size utilized by designers like Nvidia and Google—its next-generation "High-NA" EUV tools face a limitation.

High-NA technology allows for printing much finer, more detailed features on a chip, but it currently uses a smaller "mask," or pattern template, which restricts the maximum size of a single chip. The new initiative aims to develop a larger mask for the High-NA systems, allowing them to produce chips as large as those made by current-generation tools, thereby unlocking their full potential for high-performance computing.

Industry Roadmap and Timeline

This development is critical for driving broader, high-volume adoption of the costly High-NA machines. While Intel is already using the new tools for smaller laptop chips, major foundries like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Samsung Electronics have not yet adopted them for high-volume work.

Ad

Key chipmakers have outlined their adoption timelines:

• Samsung and SK Hynix plan to introduce High-NA EUV into high-volume DRAM memory production by 2028.
• TSMC intends to use the technology for its advanced-node, high-volume production starting in 2030.

ASML itself projects a pilot line featuring the larger masks by 2031, with the technology ready for high-volume manufacturing by 2033. Marco Pieters, ASML's chief technology officer, told Reuters that successfully implementing this change could boost the productivity of these systems by 40%.

Market Implications

The collaboration underscores the immense technical and financial investment required to continue Moore's Law and advance computing power. For investors, this long-term roadmap solidifies ASML's central role in the semiconductor ecosystem for the next decade. By addressing the die-size limitation, ASML ensures its High-NA platform will be essential for producing the next generation of powerful processors demanded by the AI industry.