The semiconductor industry’s least visible bottleneck is in Oberkochen, a town in southern Germany where Carl Zeiss SMT manufactures the optical systems that go into every ASML extreme ultraviolet lithography scanner. Without Zeiss’s mirrors and lenses, among the most precisely manufactured objects in existence, ASML cannot ship a single EUV machine. For the past several years, that dependency has been the binding constraint on EUV output, and by extension on the global industry’s ability to produce advanced chips.
Zeiss Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology has now opened the first new building in a multi-year expansion of its Oberkochen campus, adding roughly 25,000 square meters (about 269,000 square feet) of production and production-adjacent space. The building is the first of several planned, with groundbreaking on the campus having taken place four years ago. The expansion comes as ASML raises its production targets: the Dutch company now expects to deliver significantly more lithography systems over the next two and a half years than previously planned, with its 2026 revenue forecast raised to 43 billion to 45 billion euros (about $49 billion to $51 billion), up from 32.7 billion euros in 2025.
ASML’s 2025 annual report acknowledged that its output is limited by Zeiss SMT’s capacity, a fact that has been well understood within the semiconductor equipment supply chain but rarely stated so directly. The partnership between the two companies spans more than 30 years, and ASML holds a 24.9 percent minority stake in Carl Zeiss SMT, acquired for 1 billion euros (about $1.14 billion) as part of a long-term capacity and R&D investment agreement.
The expansion at Oberkochen addresses both current-generation EUV optics and the transition to High-NA (numerical aperture) systems, which use larger and more complex mirrors to achieve the finer resolution needed for sub-3-nanometer chip production. High-NA optics require significantly more manufacturing space and tighter tolerances than the 0.33 NA systems that dominate today’s EUV installations.
The broader context is that the AI boom has driven an unprecedented surge in demand for leading-edge chips, which in turn has exposed the fragility of the lithography supply chain. ASML is the sole supplier of EUV scanners, Zeiss is the sole supplier of EUV optics, and Trumpf is the sole supplier of the CO2 lasers that power the process. Any one of these links constrains the entire chain. The Oberkochen expansion signals that Zeiss is betting the demand trajectory will hold for at least the next decade.
Sources: Tom’s Hardware (Jul 26, 2026); EE Herald (Jul 2026); Heise Online (Jul 15, 2026); ASML annual report 2025