Visiting the ASML factory that manufactures EUV lithography machines
Latest update time：2022-03-24
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Source: Content from Semiconductor Industry Observer (ID: icbank) compiled from CNBC , thank you.
In the southern Dutch town of Veldhoven, near the Belgian border, sits the only factory capable of assembling the revolutionary machines that the world’s largest chipmakers rely on.
EUV lithography is the most expensive step in making the advanced microchips that power data centers, cars and iPhones. The machines are made by just one company: ASML.
“ASML has a monopoly on making EUV lithography machines, the most advanced type of lithography equipment needed to make every advanced processor chip we use today,” said Chris Miller, an assistant professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “Every single one of the machines they produce is one of the most complex ever made.”
EUV stands for extreme ultraviolet, a very short wavelength of light that ASML makes for the lithography machines used to print small, intricate designs on microchips. EUV light is generated by tiny explosions of molten tin at extremely fast speeds, which then reflect off unique Zeiss mirrors, which ASML says are the flattest surfaces in the world. A small fraction of the EUV light particles reaches the surface of the silicon wafer, where they print the tiny designs that determine what each chip will do.
Demand for ASML’s EUV technology has surged during a global chip shortage that has delayed deliveries of products ranging from PlayStation 5 game consoles to Chevrolet Malibu sedans, sending the company’s shares soaring more than 340% since the end of 2018, making ASML more valuable than some of its top customers such as Intel.
ASML CEO Peter Wennink said the company has been lowering semiconductor prices since its founding 38 years ago and will continue to do so for "decades to come."
“The world needs more chips,” Wennink told CNBC. “So we need to build more machines, and by the way, as long as we can drive down the cost per transistor, the average selling price of those machines will keep growing.”
Still, Wennink said the global chip shortage is a "Catch-22" for ASML.
“We’ve been getting a lot of messages from suppliers saying, ‘Hey, we may be late in delivering our modules to you because we can’t get the chips.’ We said, ‘If we can’t get the chips, we can’t build the machines to make more chips.’”
Wennink said ASML is still managing “but it’s a daily struggle.”
The $200 million machine
ASML has sold about 140 EUV systems in the past decade, and each now costs as much as $200 million, according to Wennink. Its next machine, called High NA, will cost more than $300 million.
Its EUV machines are “so expensive that most companies can’t afford them,” said Joanne Itow, managing director of manufacturing at Semico Research. “It has definitely eliminated a lot of players in the market,” she said, including chipmaker GlobalFoundries, which decided several years ago to stop developing more advanced chips because the costs were too high.
ASML's EUV lithography systems are needed to print all of the world's most advanced semiconductors
Today, ASML sells machines to just five chipmakers. The three largest — TSMC, Samsung and Intel — accounted for nearly 84% of its business in 2021. TSMC said it was the first to deliver high-volume chips made with EUV in 2019 and has led the way since then, with chip technology at least one node ahead of Samsung and Intel.
ASML’s dominance is a relatively new phenomenon. A decade ago, the company’s ability to research EUV was dictated by major investments from Intel, Samsung, and TSMC.
“We had no money,” said Wennink, who joined ASML in 1999. “So we went out and looked for partners, which was actually the foundation on which we built the company. So we were forced to become system architects and system integrators.”
ASML was founded in 1984 as a subsidiary of Dutch electronics giant Philips. It rolled out its first machine for semiconductor lithography — a process invented in a U.S. military lab in the 1950s — in a leaky shed next to Philips’ office building in Eindhoven.
“The first lithography tools really looked like projectors,” said Christophe Fouquet, executive vice president of EUV at ASML. “Basically there’s a reticle, which holds the image you want to project. Then there’s an optical system that will take this image and project it onto the wafer.”
ASML developed its first lithography system in 1984 in a leaky shed outside a Philips office building in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
By 1988, ASML had five offices in the U.S. with 84 employees and opened a new Netherlands office in Veldhoven, which eventually became its headquarters. CNBC got an exclusive tour of the facility in March.
“When the industry was getting ready to enter the early stages of EUV research, no U.S. company was ready to take the risk, but ASML had the confidence,” said Miller, author of a forthcoming book called “Chip Wars: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology.” “ASML is a Dutch company, but it’s also a Dutch company that is very dependent on U.S. components, especially for its machines.”
China and the Global Supply Chain
EUV machines consist of multiple modules with hundreds of thousands of components from nearly 800 global suppliers. Each module is manufactured at one of ASML's 60 locations around the world and then shipped to Veldhoven for assembly. After each assembled machine is tested, it is disassembled for shipment to chipmakers. The transport requires 20 trucks and three fully loaded Boeing 747s.
One of the countries ASML will not ship its EUV technology to is China.
“Forty-two countries around the world agreed to put export controls on it because it’s so important,” Wennink said. “So it’s not our choice, it’s the government’s choice.”
As early as 2018, the Trump administration reportedly pressured ASML not to sell EUV technology to Chinese companies.
“China has always wanted to join this race,” Ito said, “but China cannot get” the technology for political reasons.
ASML does engage with China in another capacity. The company refurbishes old lithography systems, called deep ultraviolet, or DUV, and sends many of them to the world’s most populous country. Wennink said 96% of all the machines ASML has sold are still working.
“There is a lot of debate about whether selling additional DUV equipment to China would also pose a national security risk by allowing China to increase its ability to make near-leading-edge semiconductors,” Miller said. “I think there is also a possibility that ASML’s ability to sell DUV equipment to China could be subject to new restrictions in the coming years.”
Before EUV, chipmakers could buy DUV lithography machines from three companies: ASML, Nikon and Canon. While Nikon remains a competitor in that market in Japan, ASML is the only choice for EUV. Experts say it could take decades for any other company to catch up, both because of ASML's proprietary technology and because it has established complex, often exclusive deals with hundreds of suppliers.
“We’re unique to some of our clients, and some of our supply is unique to us," Wennink said. "Some people say those almost symbiotic relationships are worse than marriage because you can’t divorce.”
One way ASML has insulated itself from supply chain risks is by buying some of its suppliers, such as San Diego-based Cymer, which makes EUV light sources. ASML also acquired Berliner Glas in 2020. Despite a fire at the Berlin plant in January, Wennink said the loss would not have a significant impact on system output this year.
ASML expects sales to grow 20% by 2022 and annual revenue to increase 11% by the end of the decade.
Original link:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/inside-asml-the-company-advanced-chipmakers-use-for-euv-lithography.html
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