ASML aims to supply euv chip machine for more than 155 wafers per hour in 2019

ASML is making progress in increasing the production of its euv chip making machines. In the second half of next year, the NXE:3400C should appear, which can handle 155 wafers per hour.

There are currently several NXE:3400B machines at ASML customers that run more than 125 wafers per hour, although the Veldhoven company does not report whether this is an average. ASML has set an average of 125 wafers per hour as the minimum limit for mass production.

TSMC wants to use euv next year in its second generation of 7nm chip production. ASML now announces in the publication of its quarterly figures that it has its services in order for mass production and that the availability of the euv machines is continuously being improved, without mentioning statistics. The goal is to keep them operational more than 90 percent of the time.

ASML delivered five euv machines last quarter and received orders for another five machines. Next quarter, six systems must leave the production facility in Veldhoven, bringing the total for the whole of 2018 to eighteen. In 2019, ASML aims to deliver a total of thirty euv systems.

The semiconductor industry is in the process of transitioning from today’s immersion lithography to euuv lithography. In immersion lithography, layers of chip structures are projected onto the wafer surface by light with a wavelength of 193nm, but the limits for further reduction are now in sight. Euv machines use extreme ultraviolet light with a wavelength of 13.5nm to create smaller structures. TSMC and Samsung are in the process of integrating euv into their chip manufacturing processes, Intel is taking a wait-and-see approach and GlobalFoundries has dropped out.

ASML achieved a turnover of 2.78 billion euros in the past quarter and made a profit of 680 million euros.