ASMLthe biggest manufacturer of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, announced on Monday that it has opened a test laboratory for its High NA EUV lithography equipment with Belgian chip research company Imec.
The lab in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, which took years to construct, will offer leading chip makers and other equipment and material suppliers an early likelihood to work with the 350 million euro ($380 million) instrument, the primary of its kind.
ASML dominates the marketplace for lithography equipment, a central step within the chipmaking process that uses beams of sunshine to create the chips' circuitry.
Among the chip manufacturers, only TSMC, Samsung, Intel and the memory specialists SK Hynix and Samsung are capable of produce with the present generation of utmost ultraviolet or EUV machines from ASML.
The latest High-NA tool enables as much as 60% higher resolution and will result in latest generations of smaller, faster chips.
ASML reiterated on Monday that it expects customers to start business production of the tool in 2025-2026.
So far, ASML has only delivered yet one more test machine to Intel within the US, and the corporate plans to make use of the tool in its 14A process in 2025.
ASML has orders for greater than a dozen, although TSMC, its largest customer for EUV equipment, has said it doesn’t need to make use of high-NA tools for its A16 chips, production of which is anticipated to start out in 2025.
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