TSMC, Samsung Commit to ASML Tools Amid AI Boom

Samsung and TSMC, the world’s largest chipmakers, have committed to using ASML, which is High-NA Extreme Ultraviolet lithography machines. The demand for more advanced chips has grown in the market day by day.

They are the critical tools used to print circuit patterns on silicon wafers during the process of chipmaking. The High NA machines can print smaller and more complex designs. Each of these machines can cost around $400 million. Samsung is one of the world’s biggest memory chipmakers in the market and has said that it will use ASML machines from 2028 to produce DRAM, i.e a key type of memory. TSMC, meanwhile, will adopt the technology in 2030 for advanced logic chips, as it expects High-NA use to rise with the increasingly complex transistor architectures needed for AI applications.

TSMC, meanwhile, said it would use ASML tools for advanced chips, as they are expecting the use of High-NA machines to rise, driven primarily by the increasingly complex transistor architectures required for AI applications.

Investors see the success of High-NA EUV machines as key to ASML's future growth, with the stock building on a 120% run over the past year.

Samsung and TSMC have joined Intel as customers for ASML’s High-NA EUV technology for advanced chip manufacturing. According to ASML, Intel is already using High-NA EUV technology in its manufacturing. Though ASML has not given a recent forecast on machine sales, it has said it will add about 30% of EUV capacity in 2027

The analysts at Barclays said the announcements give ASML more visibility to plan for the future. TSMC and Samsung will also join ASML in an industry initiative that advances next-generation, 12-inch photomask technology that is an upgrade from the current 6-inch format. A key part of any chip production is the stencils used to print the patterns on the wafers.

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