The most precise manufacturing device ever built by humans costs $400 million, weighs more than 150 tons, and fills the volume of a double-decker bus. Only one company in the world makes it. And the global semiconductor industry, from Intel to TSMC to Samsung, is betting its future on it.
ASML’s high-NA EUV (high numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet) lithography machine, the EXE series, represents the most ambitious step yet in the decades-long drive to pack more transistors onto a chip. Instead of switching to a shorter wavelength, which is how lithography had advanced for 40 years, ASML raised the numerical aperture of its projection optics from 0.33 to 0.55, a change that nearly triples chip density.
The specs
The machine operates at the same 13.5 nanometer wavelength as the previous EUV generation, but its 0.55 NA optics achieve an 8 nanometer resolution, approximately 40 silicon atoms wide. The previous generation achieved 13 nanometer resolution.
The mirror system is the core of the engineering challenge. The projection optics are the smoothest surfaces ever manufactured, polished by robots at Zeiss using ion beams. The assembly weighs 12 tons, compared with 1.7 tons for the previous generation. Every surface must be atomically perfect because the 13.5 nanometer EUV light is absorbed by air, by glass, and by any contaminant, the entire machine operates in high vacuum.
The light source is a tin plasma generated by firing a triple-pulse laser at 50,000 tiny tin droplets per second. Each droplet is hit three times: the first pulse flattens it, the second vaporizes it into a plasma, and the third heats the plasma to approximately 220,000 degrees Celsius, producing the 13.5 nanometer light. The laser system fills an entire room.
To compensate for the smaller exposed area per scan caused by the higher NA, the reticle stage accelerates at 22 Gs, faster than a fighter jet catapult launch. The reticles themselves are anamorphic: patterns are stretched at a 2:1 aspect ratio to prevent shadowing from the steeper light angles.
Who is buying it
Intel was the first customer, taking delivery of the very first unit in 2024. Three hundred ASML engineers assembled it at Intel’s Oregon fab. Intel has expressed confidence that high-NA EUV will be key to its attempt to regain semiconductor manufacturing leadership, and expects to begin high-volume manufacturing with the technology around 2027.
TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker, has been more cautious. Public statements indicate the company will adopt high-NA EUV when it is mature and cost-effective, likely in the 2030s. In the meantime, TSMC continues to extract more from existing EUV using multi-patterning techniques.
ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet said in May 2026 that the first chips printed with high-NA EUV are expected within months in both memory and logic applications.
The geopolitical dimension
ASML controls approximately 90 percent of the global market for advanced chip lithography tools. Since 2019, a US-led embargo has prevented ASML from selling high-NA EUV machines to China, which is reportedly developing its own prototype but remains years from industrial production.
“The geopolitical situation with chips is such that they are the new oil,” said journalist Marc Hijink, who has covered ASML for years. “ASML is the Strait of Hormuz.”
The cost problem
At $400 million per machine, high-NA EUV is transforming the economics of chip manufacturing. A fully outfitted fab with dozens of these machines costs $20 billion or more. The total R&D investment in EUV technology since ASML began pursuing it has exceeded $10 billion over 16 years.
The price has made even the largest semiconductor companies hesitate. TSMC’s reluctance to adopt early is driven partly by the capital expenditure required. But for the industry to continue shrinking transistor dimensions, there may be no alternative.
Source: Feature by Clive Thompson, MIT Technology Review (June 23, 2026).