ASML simply shipped its first next-gen EUV gadget to Intel

Highly expected: ASML focuses on production photolithography machines used to etch pc chips out of silicon wafers. The Dutch agency is, indeed, the maximum particularly valued European tech task and is currently the sole provider of extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines inside the global.

ASML introduced the shipment of its first High NA EUV machine to Intel this week, sharing a photograph of the equipment on social media. The employer is pleasing an order made in 2018, offering the Santa Clara chipmaker with a pilot scanner synthetic after a decade of "groundbreaking science and structures engineering."

High NA EUV scanners are poised to revolutionize chip manufacturing inside the following few years, providing a higher EUV numerical aperture (from zero.33 to zero.55) and using the relentless technological development finished through the maximum advanced chip foundries globally. The new scanners are expected to play a vital function in production nodes beyond 3nm, with the aforementioned chip foundries making plans to adopt the machines in 2025-2026.

ASML's pilot Twinscan EXE:5000 is a big piece of equipment, requiring thirteen truck-sized bins and 250 crates for transportation. Once assembled, the scanner might be three memories tall. Intel needed to expand one among its flowers near Hillsboro, Oregon, just to deal with this "beast." Each High NA EUV device is expected to fee between $three hundred million and $four hundred million.

Thanks to its early order and the currently shipped pilot scanner, Intel will quickly be able to test with the subsequent-gen EUV production technology conceived with the aid of ASML earlier than all and sundry else. The enterprise will probable experience a competitive area over rival foundries (Samsung Foundry, TSMC), with a purpose to must wait years for the very last model of the scanner.

However, High NA EUV adoption will no longer come as without problems as elevating the ceiling of a chip manufacturing plant. Both the pilot Twinscan EXE:5000 and the commercial-grade Twinscan EXE:5200 scanners – for which Intel placed an order in 2022 – will require substantial modifications in how chips are designed and produced, related to new techniques, substances, masks, and inspection equipment.

In 2022, ASML stated that it'd be able to bring together 20 High NA EUV machines per yr via 2027-2028. The company has already accumulated a backlog with tens of orders for the scanners, indicating that chip foundries are keen to receive and assemble the new gear at their facilities.