Samsung and TSMC Move Toward ASML’s $400M High-NA Chip Tools

In their latest manufacturing decision, Samsung Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are preparing to adopt ASML’s high-NA EUV lithography in future chip production, extending the industry shift toward a new generation of advanced manufacturing tools, Ars Technica reported.

The decision puts the two Asian chipmakers alongside Intel in a shift that is technical as much as commercial.

ASML is the only supplier of the high-numerical-aperture extreme ultraviolet systems, and the newer tools are meant to help manufacturers print smaller chip features for data-center accelerators as well as phones, tablets and laptops.

That combination of cost, supply concentration and manufacturing value explains why the adoption schedule matters.

The report puts the cost of each machine at as much as $400 million.

High-NA EUV is not simply a faster replacement tool; it changes what chip designers can attempt on future process nodes while forcing manufacturers to coordinate equipment, materials and mask standards years before volume production.

The schedule also shows how long advanced fabs must prepare before the equipment affects customer chips.

The machinery changes how advanced circuits are patterned on silicon wafers.

EUV lithography uses laser-generated light with a shorter wavelength than older deep-ultraviolet systems, allowing finer features to be built layer by layer.

In ASML’s system, lasers strike molten tin and create plasma at around 200,000° C, while mirrors gather and steer the light into a bus-size lithography tool.

High-NA EUV adds larger mirrors and an improved optical system so the light can be focused more precisely.

That makes the machines central to the next stage of advanced manufacturing, but it also leaves chipmakers dependent on a small set of specialised suppliers and on equipment expensive enough to shape fab investment plans.

Samsung’s first stated use is memory-chip production in 2028.

TSMC is aiming to introduce the technology for its most advanced customer chips, including work for companies such as AMD, Apple, Nvidia and Qualcomm, from 2030.

Intel has already started using high-NA EUV in high-volume manufacturing of Panther Lake mobile processors that began in July 2026.

The companies are also backing a related change in photomasks, the stencils that carry circuit patterns onto wafers.

Samsung and TSMC have joined Intel and ASML in work to move from 6-inch photomasks to 12-inch photomasks for the new generation of equipment.

ASML chief technology officer Marco Pieters told Bloomberg that the larger format could eventually improve the productivity of high-NA EUV chipmaking by 40 percent.

SK Hynix may add another memory supplier to that effort.

A company spokesperson told Bloomberg that the South Korean chipmaker is considering joining the industry consortium overseeing the larger photomask transition.

SK Hynix is also targeting memory-chip production with high-NA EUV starting in 2028.

The manufacturing push is tied to a broader shortage of memory chips as technology companies build AI data centres.

Higher demand has contributed to price pressure for smartphones, laptops and gaming machines, making production efficiency more than a laboratory concern for the companies buying finished chips.

ASML’s role also sits inside the US-China technology contest.

The Dutch company still supplies Chinese manufacturers such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation with older deep-ultraviolet equipment, but Dutch export restrictions and US political pressure have blocked most advanced chipmaking machines from being shipped to China.

That constraint leaves China trying to close a complex equipment gap at home.

Chinese firms face the task of reproducing not only EUV lithography machines but also the supplier network behind them.

A recent forecast from Germany’s Zeiss Group, which supplies ASML’s mirrors and optical systems exclusively, put China’s EUV development gap at 15 years.