Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest semiconductor foundry, will take delivery of its most advanced chip-making machine, High NA EUV, from Dutch lithography equipment supplier ASML this year. This major progress not only marks TSMC's further leadership in semiconductor manufacturing technology, but also indicates that the entire semiconductor industry is about to enter a new stage of development. The launch of the High NA EUV lithography machine enables the semiconductor manufacturing process to leapfrog from 3nm to 2nm and even lower, continuing Moore's Law and providing a broader space for the development of chip technology in the future.
The importance of High NA EUV technology
High NA EUV technology is ASML's latest breakthrough in extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) technology, which will bring unprecedented precision and scalability to chip manufacturing. This technology enables the printing of smaller features than ever before, providing critical support for the development and production of next-generation processors. ASML recently printed dense lines of 10 nanometers (nm) for the first time in its High NA laboratory at its headquarters in the Netherlands, the finest lines ever printed, setting a world record resolution for EUV lithography scanners. The application of high NA EUV lithography machine will promote the upgrading of the entire semiconductor industry chain. Upstream material suppliers need to provide higher quality lithography materials, midstream manufacturers need to improve their process level, and downstream chip design companies need to optimize their design solutions to give full play to the technical advantages of high-NA EUV lithography machines.
Picture: TSMC will receive the first batch of lithography machines by the end of the year (Source: ASML)
TSMC's technology is leading
TSMC, ASML's largest customer, uses ASML's EUV systems to manufacture top-of-the-line chips for fabless chip manufacturers such as Apple, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. With the arrival of High NA EUV technology, TSMC expects to use these lithography machines to build processors using Angstrom 10 (A10) technology, which is about two generations ahead of the 2nm node, which is scheduled to go into production by the end of next year. This means that we may not see these machines used for mass production until after 2030.
Technical Challenges and Market Implications
While High NA EUV technology brings significant technical advantages, it also presents design and production challenges. High NA EUV machines have a smaller imaging area than current NA EUV machines, so chipmakers need to adapt their designs accordingly. In addition, the size of the High NA EUV machines was significantly larger than current lithography machines, so these foundries had to reorganize their production lines or build new factories from scratch to accommodate ASML's latest products.
Industry Competitive Landscape
Currently, only three companies, Intel, Samsung, and TSMC, are known to be developing more advanced chips that will take advantage of ASML's High NA EUV lithography technology. This development not only demonstrates the company's leadership in the technology competition, but also reflects the urgent need for state-of-the-art technology in the global semiconductor manufacturing industry.
Conclusion
TSMC's acceptance of ASML's High NA EUV lithography machine is not only a major improvement of the company's own technical strength, but also an important boost to the future development of the entire semiconductor industry. With these state-of-the-art devices in place, we expect to see new leaps in performance, efficiency, and innovation in semiconductor technology.
