🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

TSMC takes a cautious path while rivals move faster on High-NA

• TSMC plans to keep using existing ASML extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines for its next chipmaking node. Rivals are moving ahead with High-NA systems, which can print features about 1.7 times smaller than current tools 1.
• Intel has installed ASML’s Twinscan EXE:5200B, the first High-NA lithography system used to print tiny chip features, for work on its 14A process. Intel expects risk production in 2027 with volume output in 2028 1.
• Samsung received its first Twinscan EXE:5200B High-NA scanner in late 2025 and a second in the first half of 2026 1. SK hynix, a South Korean memory chipmaker, installed a High-NA EUV tool in September 2025. The tool was the TWINSCAN EXE:5200B and it will support future dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) production 1.
• TSMC has chosen not to use High-NA EUV for its 1.4nm-generation technology. The decision comes down to cost and risk, not a full dismissal of High-NA EUV 1.

The choice ripples through the chip equipment chain

• ASML stays in a strong position because it has a near-monopoly in EUV systems 2.
• Chipmakers may buy High-NA tools or current-generation machines, but either path supports fast growth in ASML’s EUV business in 2026 2.
• The spending wave also lifts a small group of specialist suppliers. They include ZEISS SMT, the unit of German optics company Zeiss that exclusively supplies the advanced optical systems, plus Lam Research and Applied Materials 3.
• Firms outside this circle face a wider gap. SMIC, a leading Chinese chipmaker, still cannot buy EUV tools under export controls 3.