Truck-sized High NA EUV lithography machines, costing more than 300 million euros each, are a must-have for the world's top chipmakers to build smaller and more powerful processors over the next decade.
ASML, Europe's largest technology company, is a leader in the lithography market, a key link in the semiconductor manufacturing process in which focused beams of light are used to create electrical circuits.
“Some component suppliers are having trouble ramping up to meet our demand for the right technology quality, so there have been some delays,” Wennink said. “But the company is actually on track to deliver the first shipments this year.”
To date, only TSMC, Intel, Samsung, memory chipmaker SK Hynix and Micron have been equipped with the Dutch company’s advanced lithography (EUV) machines, which are the size of buses and cost 200 million euros each.
Under pressure from the US government , the Netherlands is currently not granting ASML licenses to export EUV machines to Chinese chipmakers.
Meanwhile, China has sent signals that it is still making some progress in semiconductors without ASML's machines.
Huawei and SMIC, two leading technology companies in the mainland, have launched the Mate 60 Pro smartphone model using a domestically produced chip on a 7 nanometer (nm) process, only about two generations behind the latest processors today.
However, experts say China has hit a ceiling in semiconductor development as it is unable to access more advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. For example, Apple's iPhone 14 chip is manufactured on a 4nm process, while the iPhone 15 generation is reduced to 3nm. All of Apple's chips are manufactured with ASML equipment.
(According to Reuters, Bloomberg)
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