How a company from Eindhoven became a monopolist in the market of modern equipment for the production of microcircuits

Stepper ASML: A Key Link in Chip Manufacturing. It illuminates the photoresist through the mask, as in the photo enlarger. The cost of the device is about $ 170 million

. Everyone has heard that Intel, Samsung and TSMC have the three largest chip manufacturers in the world (the latter fulfills orders for Apple and AMD).

However, few have heard of ASML  , a modest company in the suburbs of Eindhoven, the fifth largest city in the Netherlands. But if you look, this company plays a key role in the microelectronic industry. It is the world's only producer of steppers for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), writes edition of The the Economist .

ASML is not the only manufacturer of photolithographic machines that use light to etch integrated circuits on silicon wafers. Here, the company competes with the Japanese Canon and Nikon. But since 2005, the Dutch company’s market share has almost doubled, to 62%. Only she has the equipment for photolithography in deep ultraviolet with a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers.

For example, in 2019, Samsung announced the release of Exynos 9825 SoC (7 nm) on EUV-range equipment. It was one of the first microcircuits in the world, which was produced according to a new process technology. Samsung factory also has ASML steppers.

Shorter wavelengths allow etching smaller components - this is vital for chip manufacturers who want to increase the number of transistors on a chip in accordance with Moore's law. He claims that the number of components in a particular area doubles approximately every two years.

Interestingly, experts have repeatedly predicted the "death" of Moore's law due to physical restrictions on the size of transistors. For example, here is a 1999 article from The New York Times that talks about serious obstacles to overcoming the 100 nm mark (for reference, TSMC and AMD have already mastered the 7 nm process technology). The article refers to the words of Intel researcher Paul Packan, who expressed his opinion on the pages of the scientific journal Science:



Photolithography in deep ultraviolet is an advanced technology that has extended the life of Moore's law. The first experimental alignment and exposure units (steppers) for EUVL were created in 2000 at the Livermore National Laboratory, but the creation of commercially available equipment took almost 20 years, because the engineers had to solve a number of difficult technical problems associated with the high energy density of the EUV radiation beam , which is ten times higher than that of a 193-nm laser beam (photolithography of the previous generation).

Samsung representatives said that because of this, it is extremely difficult to effectively etch the thinnest tracks after processing the plate. At this size of elements, difficulties arise with the deposition of additives into extremely narrow chain grooves in crystals.

Engineers at ASML, which offers its customers several models of EUV steppers and scanners, solve these problems.


Installation for extreme ultraviolet lithography ASML Twinscan NXE: 3400B supports etching size elements 7 and 5 nm in an industrial scale (125 or more wafers per hour)

Stepper- The main equipment used in the manufacture of semiconductor integrated circuits. During the operation of the stepper, the pattern from the mask is repeatedly translated into the pattern on various parts of the semiconductor wafer. The stepper got its name due to the fact that each exposure is made in small rectangular sections (of the order of several square centimeters); to expose the entire plate, it is moved in steps that are multiples of the size of the exposed area (step-and-repeat process). After each movement, an additional verification of the positioning is carried out.

Modern lithographic installations can use not a step, but a scanning mode of operation; they are called “scanners” (step-and-scan). When exposed, both the plate and the mask move in opposite directions. ATthe previous generation of scanners, the mask scanning speed was up to 2000 mm / s, plates - up to 500 mm / s.

Step-and-scan concept

Three of the world's leading chip makers — Intel, Samsung, and TSMC — have become as dependent on ASML products as the rest of the technology industry is dependent on their own products, writes The Economist .

ASML's results reflect this increased dependence. Its revenue in 2019 grew by 8%, to € 11.8 billion, despite a temporary decline in the semiconductor industry. Deliveries of equipment for photolithography in deep ultraviolet amounted to 26 of the 229 cars sold in 2019, but brought a third of the proceeds. The company expects this figure to rise to 75% by 2025, as other chip manufacturers are modernizing their factories and are also installing equipment for EUV photolithography.

Since competitors Canon and Nikon do not yet have EUV technology, investors have come to the conclusion that ASML will be able to profit from its monopoly for some time. Since 2010, its market capitalization has grown tenfold, reaching about € 114 billion. In the last year alone, it has almost doubled. Today, ASML costs more than Airbus, Siemens, or Volkswagen.

Capitalization of some European companies. Source: Refinitiv, The Economist data. The

stock price was adjusted along with everyone because of COVID-19, but investors appreciate its long-term prospects: stocks are trading at an impressive 32 times the price-earnings ratio (P / E), which is two or more times higher than the largest customers.

Times have not always been so good. The company began operations in 1984 as a joint venture of Philips, the Dutch electronics giant, and ASM International, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer. At first, she occupied several wooden buildings on the Philips Eindhoven campus. ASML Technical Director Jos Benschop speaks frankly about early issues. The first products were released on an outdated platform, and the company struggled to find customers. She kept afloat only thanks to help from Philips, which itself faced financial difficulties, subsidies from the Dutch government and the European Economic Community (the predecessor of the European Union).

In 1995, the company placed shares in New York and Amsterdam. Soon after, the company relied on deep ultraviolet photolithography, in which she saw the future of chip manufacturing. Large manufacturers were promised the delivery of the first EUV steppers around 2007. But they were disappointed - and more than once. The company found that deep ultraviolet light is very difficult to work with. Solving the problems took much longer than expected. The firm's first prototypes were shipped to IMEC, a research institute in Belgium, in 2006. Commercial customers began to use the technology only in 2018.

The steppers for photolithography of the previous generation used lasers directly. But as the wavelength decreases, things get more complicated.


Illustration: ASML

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Machines weighing 180 tons and the size of a double-decker bus are themselves evidence of sophisticated logistics in the electronics industry. The components for these machines are made by about 5,000 suppliers . German optical company Carl Zeiss produces lenses. The Dutch VDL produces robotic arms that feed plates into the machine. Light sources are manufactured by Cymer, an American company acquired by ASML in 2013. In turn, ASML is one of the hundreds of companies that supply equipment for chip manufacturers such as Intel, Samsung and TSMC.

Recognizing ASML's dominant position is not limited to clients or investors. Politicians are also aware of the situation. Photolithography in deep ultraviolet is included inWassenaar list of dual-use technologies that have both military and civilian applications.

Excerpt from the Wassenaar List of Dual-Purpose Technologies, December 2019 version ( pdf )

For example, China seeks to develop its own leading chip manufacturing firms, and the United States is trying to prevent this. In 2018, ASML received an order for the EUV scanner from Huawei, whose factories are currently two generations behind the modern level. Under US pressure, the Dutch government has not yet granted an export license to ASML.

ASML would not want to refuse access to the Chinese market, because in the long run this could jeopardize the dominance of the company in its sector. But China needs ASML even more than it needs. Of all the equipment needed for the advanced microelectronics factory that the authorities want to build, “ASML technology is the most difficult to reproduce,” said Pierre Ferragu, technology analyst at New Street Research. Future Horizons, another analyst with Malcolm Penn, said it would take a Chinese competitor a decade or more to reproduce photolithography in deep ultraviolet light, and by then the technology frontier would move forward again.

The Dutch are already working on a new generation of EUV machines5000 series with better optics that can process more silicon wafers per hour. They should be released in 2023. The new machines use more powerful lasers, and the drop frequency of tin drops is increased from 50,000 to 80,000 Hz.

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