ASML aims to supply euv chip machines for 170 wafers per hour in 2019
ASML announced during the presentation of the quarterly figures that it will deliver the NXE:3400C to customers in the second half of this year. According to the company, this EUV machine is capable of processing 170 wafers per hour.
AMSL has made some progress with the NXE:3400C machine, as the company reported last October that the EUV machine can handle a total of 155 wafers per hour. Currently, several NXE:3400B machines are already operating at ASML customers and running more than 125 wafers per hour.
The Veldhoven company reports in its quarterly figures report that it received orders in the last quarter of last year for the delivery of five new EUV machines. However, ASML does not talk about machines that were actually delivered in the previous quarter. The CEO does report that there is a demand for a total of thirty euv systems for 2019.
The chip machine manufacturer achieved a record turnover of 10.9 billion euros in 2018 and a profit of 2.6 billion euros. In 2017, those figures still amounted to a turnover of 9 billion euros and a profit of 2.1 billion euros. The chip machine manufacturer achieved a turnover of 3.1 billion euros and a profit of 788 million euros in the past quarter.
CEO Peter Wennink expects ASML to achieve a turnover of 2.1 billion in the first quarter of 2019. This is lower than the turnover from the first quarter of 2018, which amounted to 2.29 billion euros. However, the CEO of ASML also states that, among other things, the fire at one of the suppliers leads to a turnover of even 300 million euros lower.
The semiconductor industry is in the process of transitioning from today’s immersion lithography to euuv lithography. In immersion lithography, layers with chip structures are projected onto the wafer surface by light with a wavelength of 193nm, but it is increasingly difficult to achieve a further reduction in size. ASML’s euv machines use extreme ultraviolet light with a wavelength of 13.5nm to allow for smaller structures.