A few days ago, ASML product marketing director Mike Lercel shared the latest progress of EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography machines to the media.

ASML's main EUV lithography machines are NXE: 3400B and 3400C. Their numerical apertures (NA) are both 0.33, and the availability of the more recent 3400C has reached about 90%.

It is expected that before the end of this year, NXE: 3600D will start to be delivered, the wafer flux at 30mJ/cm2 is 160 wafers, which is 18% higher than that of 3400C, and the machine matching registration accuracy has also increased. It is expected to be the future TSMC, Samsung 3nm process main support.

After 3600D, the three generations of lithography machines planned by ASML are NEXT, EXE: 5000 and EXE: 5200. Starting from EXE: 5000, the numerical aperture is increased to 0.55, but it will be shipped later in 2022.

Since the lithography machine takes up to two years from delivery to configuration/training, the large-scale application of 0.55NA will wait until 2025~2026, and the service should be TSMC's 2nm or even 1nm process.

0.55NA has many advantages over 0.33NA, including higher contrast ratio, lower cost of graphic exposure, and higher production efficiency.

Of course, silicon wafers and exposure clean rooms are approaching physical limits, which are also challenges that cannot be underestimated. Today, the 5nm/7nm lithography machine already requires 100,000+ parts and 40 containers, and the 1nm era lithography machine is about twice as large as the 3nm one, as you can imagine.