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Taiwan Enters Angstrom Era with ASML’s High-NA EUV
TSMC is eyeing the “angstrom” era as its next big step, but it will need an assist from EUV equipment maker ASML. CommonWealth Magazine got an exclusive look at how ASML came to dominate the technology set to power the new chipmaking age.
CommonWealth reporters were ready to enter ASML’s enormous clean room, fully covered by cleanroom suits that only left their eyes exposed, when a staff offered a simple reminder: make sure all makeup was removed to prevent contamination of the pristine conditions.
The CommonWealth team was visiting the Netherlands headquarters of ASML, the global leader in semiconductor equipment, as the first media outlet from Taiwan allowed to get a look at “the world’s most complex machine” — ASML’s high numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet (high-NA EUV) lithography machine.
Ready to Help Taiwan Chart a New Course
Sources involved with Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain said TSMC recently took delivery of a high-NA EUV machine at its R&D center in Hsinchu for testing. It plans on using many of the machines to mass-produce chips using A10-process technology (A10 is 10 angstroms, equal to 1 nanometer) by 2030, bringing TSMC into the “angstrom era.”
The high-NA EUV machine is huge, as big as a double-decker bus, and weighs 150 metric tons — equal to two A320 airplanes.
Just shipping it to TSMC required packing it into 250 crates, and it will take 200 workers six months to reassemble it, earning the machine the title of the world’s most complex machine.
TSMC plans to begin mass-producing chips using the advanced 2-nanometer process — one of the last frontiers before angstrom-level processes — in 2025. That would also be impossible without the European alliance led by ASML and joined by German semiconductor manufacturing optics specialist Zeiss SMT and carbon dioxide laser maker Trumpf SE+ Co. KG.
This illustrious trio emerged from Europe’s “Deep Tech” hidden champions and represents the pinnacle of European craftsmanship.
Many people are concerned that Taiwan’s economy is too dependent on TSMC, but the world’s biggest contract chipmaker is currently pushing to localize its supply chain, creating opportunities for many industries to enhance their value. This European deep-tech group can serve as a model for Taiwan’s hidden champions in upgrading their technologies with TSMC’s support.
TSMC once disclosed that it controlled 56% of the world’s EUV installed capacity. At the time, a first-generation EUV machine cost the astounding sum of NT$3 billion, so it may seem hard to believe that the price of an advanced EUV machine will triple its first-generation iteration and cost as much as the United States’ most advanced F-22 fighter jet.
Read the full article:
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