Behind extremely secured doorways in an enormous lab within the Netherlands, there is a machine that is reworking how microchips are made. ASML spent almost a decade growing Excessive NA, which stands for prime numerical aperture. With a price ticket of greater than $400 million, it is the world’s most superior and costly chipmaking machine.
CNBC went to the Netherlands for a tour of the lab in April. Earlier than that, Excessive NA had by no means been filmed, even by ASML’s personal group.
Contained in the lab, Excessive NA qualification group lead Assia Haddou gave CNBC an unique, up-close take a look at the Excessive NA machines, which she mentioned are “greater than a double-decker bus.”
The machine is made up of 4 modules, manufactured in Connecticut, California, Germany and the Netherlands, then assembled within the Veldhoven, Netherlands, lab for testing and approval, earlier than being disassembled once more to ship out. Haddou mentioned it takes seven partially loaded Boeing 747s, or at the least 25 vehicles, to get one system to a buyer.
The world’s first business set up of Excessive NA occurred at Intel‘s Oregon chip fabrication plant, or fab, in 2024. Solely 5 of the colossal machines have ever been shipped.
They’re now being ramped as much as make hundreds of thousands of chips on the manufacturing facility flooring of the few corporations that may afford them: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Samsung and Intel.
Excessive NA is the newest technology of ASML’s Excessive Ultraviolet, or EUV, machines. ASML is the unique maker of EUV, the one lithography units on the planet able to projecting the smallest blueprints that make up essentially the most superior microchips. Chip designs from giants like Nvidia, Apple and AMD cannot be manufactured with out EUV.
ASML instructed CNBC that Excessive NA will ultimately be utilized by all its EUV clients. That features different superior chipmakers like Micron, SK Hynix and Rapidus.
“This firm has that market utterly cornered,” mentioned Daniel Newman of The Futurum Group.
Excessive NA chipmaking machine in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on April 24, 2025.
Magdalena Petrova
CNBC requested CEO Christophe Fouquet what’s stopping ASML from setting the worth of its machines even larger. He defined that as machines advance, they make it cheaper to provide the chips themselves.
“Moore’s regulation says that we have to proceed to drive prices down,” Fouquet mentioned. “There’s a perception that if you happen to drive prices down, you create extra alternative, so we should be a part of this recreation.”
Two main clients have confirmed that Excessive NA has proven massive enhancements over ASML’s earlier EUV machines. At a convention in February, Intel mentioned it had used Excessive NA to make about 30,000 wafers up to now, and that the machine was about twice as dependable as its predecessors. At that very same convention, Samsung mentioned Excessive NA might cut back its cycle time by 60%, which means its chips can full extra operations per second.
‘A really dangerous funding’
Excessive NA can drive chip costs down due to these enhancements in pace and efficiency. Excessive NA additionally improves yield, which means extra of the chips on every wafer are usable.
That is as a result of it may venture chip designs at the next decision. Excessive NA makes use of the identical course of as EUV machines however with a bigger lens opening that enables for projection of smaller chip design in fewer steps.
“Excessive NA means two issues. In the beginning, shrink. So there’s extra units on a single wafer,” mentioned Jos Benschop, ASML’s govt vp of know-how. “Secondly, by avoiding a number of patterning, you may make them quicker and you may make them with larger yield.”
Benschop joined ASML in 1997, two years after it grew to become a publicly traded firm. Benschop then helped drive the choice to go all in on EUV. The know-how took greater than 20 years to develop.
ASML govt VP of know-how Jos Benschop gave CNBC’s Katie Tarasov a take a look at Excessive NA chipmaking in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on April 24, 2025.
Magdalena Petrova
“We barely made it. I believe generally individuals neglect that,” Fouquet mentioned. “It has been a really dangerous funding as a result of after we began, there was no assure the know-how would work.”
By 2018, ASML proved the viability of EUV and main chipmakers began inserting massive orders for the machines. The thought, which appeared inconceivable to many twenty years in the past, was to create giant quantities of tiny rays of utmost ultraviolet gentle, projecting it by means of masks with more and more small chip designs, onto wafers of silicon handled with photoresist chemical compounds.
To create the EUV gentle, ASML shoots molten tin out of a nozzle at 50,000 droplets per second, capturing every drop with a robust laser that creates a plasma that is hotter than the solar. These tiny explosions are what emit photons of the EUV gentle, with a wavelength of simply 13.5 nanometers.
In regards to the width of 5 DNA strands, EUV is so small that it is absorbed by all recognized substances, so the entire course of has to occur in a vacuum. The EUV gentle bounces off mirrors that purpose it by means of a lens, very like how a digicam works. To resolve for EUV getting absorbed by mirrors, German optics firm Zeiss made particular mirrors only for ASML which are the flattest surfaces on the planet.
ASML’s older technology DUV machines use much less exact rays of deep ultraviolet gentle with a wavelength of 193 nanometers. ASML nonetheless makes the machines — competing towards Nikon and Canon in Japan on DUV — however it’s the solely firm on the planet that is succeeded at EUV lithography.
The Dutch firm started growing the $400 million Excessive NA machines round 2016. Excessive NA machines work the identical as DUV, with the identical EUV gentle supply. However there’s one key distinction.
The upper numerical aperture of Excessive NA means it has a bigger lens opening, rising the angle at which the sunshine is captured by the mirrors. Extra gentle coming in from steeper angles permits Excessive NA machines to switch more and more small designs onto the wafer in a single step. By comparability, decrease NA machines require a number of projections of EUV gentle, by means of a number of masks.
“When the quantity will increase, it will get very complicated process-wise and the yield goes down,” Fouquet mentioned.
Decision improves as NA will increase, bringing down the necessity for a number of masks and exposures, saving money and time. The price of the Excessive NA machine, nevertheless, goes up.
“The larger the mirror you need to use and due to this fact the larger the system,” Fouquet mentioned.
These machines additionally take up an enormous quantity of energy.
“If we do not enhance the facility effectivity of our AI chips over time, the coaching of the fashions might devour your complete worldwide vitality and that would occur round 2035,” Fouquet mentioned. That is why ASML has decreased the facility wanted per wafer publicity by greater than 60% since 2018, he mentioned.
ASML’s Assia Haddou exhibits CNBC’s Katie Tarasov a Excessive NA chipmaking machine in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on April 24, 2025.
Magdalena Petrova
China, tariffs and U.S. development
ASML is thought for its groundbreaking EUV machines, however its older DUV machines nonetheless made up 60% of enterprise in 2024. ASML offered 44 EUV machines final 12 months, with a price ticket beginning at $220 million. DUV machines are far cheaper, starting from $5 million to $90 million, however ASML offered 374 of the legacy machines in 2024.
China is a serious purchaser of these DUV methods, making up 49% of ASML’s enterprise within the second quarter of 2024. Fouquet instructed CNBC this peak in gross sales to China got here due to a “big backlog” in orders that ASML wasn’t in a position to fill till final 12 months. He mentioned enterprise in China must be again to the “historic regular” of between 20% and 25% in 2025.
U.S. export controls forestall ASML from promoting EUV to China. It is a ban that began beneath the primary Trump administration. Newman of The Futurum Group mentioned it is a “actual lengthy shot” that China might develop its personal EUV machines, as a substitute making units like smartphones utilizing essentially the most superior chips potential with DUV.
U.S. concern over superior tech making its technique to China has accelerated amid the generative synthetic intelligence race. That growth has additionally despatched chip shares hovering, together with ASML’s, which hit an all-time excessive in July.
ASML’s share value has declined greater than 30% since, because the chip trade faces key uncertainties comparable to President Donald Trump‘s tariffs.
Benschop instructed CNBC that ASML merely would not understand how tariffs will impression the corporate. With about 800 world suppliers, tariff implications for ASML are complicated.
Making a single Excessive NA machine requires many steps of imports and exports. The machine’s 4 modules are made within the U.S., Netherlands and Germany, then they’re shipped to the Netherlands for meeting and testing, the place they’re disassembled once more for cargo to chip fabs in locations just like the U.S. or Asia.
For years, Asia has made up greater than 80% of ASML’s enterprise. The U.S. share sat round 17% in 2024 however is rising quick. ASML has 44,000 workers globally, and eight,500 of them are based mostly within the U.S. throughout 18 places of work.
A lot of ASML’s 2024 Excessive NA shipments went to Intel, which is constructing new fabs in Ohio and Arizona. The U.S.-based chipmaker has struggled lately, however Fouquet mentioned that Intel stays a “formidable companion” for ASML and that it is “very crucial” for U.S. semiconductor independence.
Taiwan-based TSMC is much forward of Intel in advancing chip nodes. CNBC just lately visited TSMC’s new fab north of Phoenix, which is now in quantity manufacturing. As essentially the most superior chip fab on U.S. soil, the necessity for Excessive NA there’ll seemingly come quickly.
ASML, in the meantime, is constructing its first U.S. coaching middle in Arizona. Fouquet instructed CNBC it is going to open within the “subsequent few months” with a objective of coaching 1,200 individuals on EUV and DUV every year. It is “a capability that won’t solely meet what is required within the U.S., however might be used additionally to coach much more individuals worldwide,” he mentioned.
The Dutch firm plans to additional enhance the numerical aperture on its subsequent machine, Hyper NA.
Fouquet instructed CNBC that ASML has some draft optical designs for this subsequent machine, and that, “it is not essentially a tough product.” He expects the necessity for Hyper NA to return “between 2032 and 2035.” He would not speculate on value.
For now, ASML is targeted on assembly demand for Excessive NA. It plans to ship at the least 5 extra methods this 12 months and ramping to a manufacturing capability of 20 machines in a number of years.
Watch the video to see Excessive NA in motion.