ASML: Samsung share sale is separate from euv claims

Samsung is selling half of its shares in ASML. According to the chip machine manufacturer, the sale is not related to the developments in the field of euv machines. The introduction of this lithography technology is a long time coming.

According to ASML, there is close cooperation between the company from Veldhoven and Samsung. “The joint effort in R&D between ASML and Samsung is greater than ever,” an ASML spokesperson told FD. Samsung stresses to Reuters that the sale will not affect EUV cooperation: “The sale will not affect the strategic partnership between the two groups.”

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Samsung is selling half of its ASML share package. Samsung has 6.3 million shares in the company, with which it owns a 2.9 percent stake. That interest was acquired in 2012 as part of an investment round specifically intended to accelerate the development of euv machines. Intel and TSMC also participated at the time. TSMC sold its stake for a profit in 2015.

ASML is preparing the chip machines for mass production based on extreme ultraviolet light. The shorter wavelength allows these machines to produce smaller structures in chip production than is possible with immersion lithography. This allows them to switch to smaller processes and continue to make more efficient and faster chips in the coming decades. ASML is having great difficulty getting the technology ready for production. In 2006, for example, Intel hoped to use euv for 32nm production, but now the question is whether euv will even reach 7nm production.

Earlier this week, ASML CFO Wolfgang Nickl announced at the Citi 2016 Global Technology Conference in New York that the company is on track to meet its 2016 EUV targets. A customer’s EUV scanner would have processed 1,500 wafers in a day. . Another goal is to achieve an uptime of 90 percent with the machines, but this goal has not yet been achieved, Bits&Chips writes.