The undisputed winner of the aggressive competition of TSMC, Intel and Samsung is a European company: ASML

Integrated 2 nm circuits are about to disembark in the market. Users know that nanometers have lost much of their usefulness, and that, in reality, They represent a category of semiconductors. In fact, they no longer faithfully reflect the length of logical doors or other physical parameter, such as the distance between transistors. Each chips manufacturer He manages them with freedomwhich prevents us from directly comparing the lithographs that try to “sell us.”

Whatever the important thing is that TSMC, Intel and Samsung are about to engage in a new battle that seeks to capture the maximum possible number of customers for their 2 Nm or comparable line nodes. Whatever happens we can be sure that the great beneficiary of this contest will be The Dutch Company ASML. And it will be because it is the only manufacturer on the planet that produces the equipment of extreme ultraviolet photolithography (UVE) and haute opening that are necessary to go beyond the 2 Nm reaching the optimal performance.

Digitimes Asia He has just confirmed that those responsible for the Samsung semiconductors manufacture are weighing the possibility of increasing the number of Uve haute opening machines that will buy at ASML. And, according to this Asian medium, it will do it because it needs to reduce the technological and commercial gap that separates it from TSMC, which leads the chip market with A fee close to 60%. The Uve High Opening machines are still in the test phase, but there are no doubt that they will be the authentic protagonists of the semiconductor industry in 2026 and successive years.

ASML Haute Opening Lithography Machography is an engineering prodigy

It weighs as much as two Airbus A320 and incorporates more than 100,000 pieces, 3,000 cables, 40,000 bolts, and also more than 2 km of electrical connections. The photolithography team Twinscan Exe: 5000 Designed and manufactured by ASML is the most sophisticated integrated circuit production machine that exists. And also the most expensive. The most up -to -date information we have reflects that only one of these teams costs 350 million euroswhich will surely cause some chips manufacturers think twice Before buying it.

ASML engineers have invested a decade in the development of the technology necessary to set up this machine, which, in reality, is a team of extreme ultraviolet lithography (UVE) second generation. This company of the Netherlands plans to deliver to its customers annually From 2025 about 20 teams of this type with a purpose: put in their hands the possibility of producing chips of 2 nm and beyond. Interestingly, to develop this machine, ASML engineers have made a very advanced optical architecture that has an opening of 0.55 compared to the 0.33 value that the first -generation UVE lithography equipment has.

This refinement of the optics allows to transfer to the wafer patterns of greater resolution, hence it is possible to manufacture chips using more advanced integration technologies than those currently used in the nodes of 3 Nm. However, this is not all. ASML has also improved the mechanical systems that are responsible for the manipulation of wafers with the purpose of making it possible for a single UVE Machine to be able to produce more than 200 wafers per hour.

The cover photography of this article allows us to intuit the extreme complexity and sophistication that one of these teams has, which, by the way, would not be possible without the cooperation of other companies, such as the German Zeiss or Cymer, a company of American origin that is currently consolidated within the ASML structure. Somehow this last company Delivery to ASML the raw material that need their photolithography machines. And that raw material is none other than the ultraviolet light that is responsible for transporting the geometric pattern described by the mask so that it can be transferred with great precision to the surface of the Silicon wafer.

Image | ASML

More information | Digitimes Asia

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