ASML Holding NV is showing off its latest chipmaking machine, a 350 million euro (US$380 million) piece of equipment that weighs as much as two Airbus A320s.
Media outlets were given a tour on Friday of the system known as High-NA extreme ultraviolet. Intel Corp has already placed orders for the machine and got the first one shipped to a factory in Oregon in late December. The company plans to start making chips with it late next year.
The machine can print lines on semiconductors 8 nanometers thick, 1.7 times smaller than the previous generation. The thinner the lines, the more transistors you can fit on a chip. And the more transistors you can fit on a chip, the higher the processing speeds and memory.
Photo: Reuters
That is why, ASML executives said, the system will prove essential for artificial intelligence (AI), a technology that is notorious for the intensity of the processing it requires.
AI will need “massive amounts of computing power and data storage. I think without ASML, without our technology, that’s not going to happen,” company chief executive officer Peter Wennink said in an interview with Bloomberg last month. “It’s going to be a big driver for our business.”
ASML is the only company that produces equipment needed to make the most sophisticated semiconductors, and demand for its products is a bellwether for the industry’s health.
The Dutch company last quarter received record orders for its top-of-the-line extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, showing optimism among the biggest customers for the technology, including Intel, Samsung Electronics Co and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).
Installation of the first 150,000-kilogram system required 250 crates, 250 engineers and six months to complete, ASML spokesperson Monique Mols said during the press tour of the company headquarters in Veldhoven.
The rise of generative AI over the past year, catalyzed by OpenAI’s ChatGPT launch late 2022, has boosted expectations for semiconductor companies across the board. The so-called low-NA EUV machines, which ASML has been selling since 2018, have a price tag of 170 million euros.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS