In the back of extremely attach doorways in a immense lab within the Netherlands, there’s a device that’s reworking how microchips are made. ASML spent just about a decade growing Prime NA, which stands for top numerical aperture. With a price ticket of greater than $400 million, it’s the arena’s maximum complex and costly chipmaking device.
CNBC was at the Netherlands for a excursion of the lab in April. Sooner than that, Prime NA had by no means been filmed, even by way of ASML’s personal group.
Within the lab, Prime NA qualification group govern Assia Haddou gave CNBC an unique, up-close take a look at the Prime NA machines, which she mentioned are “bigger than a double-decker bus.”
The device is made up of 4 modules, manufactured in Connecticut, California, Germany and the Netherlands, after assembled within the Veldhoven, Netherlands, lab for trying out and commendation, ahead of being disassembled once more to send out. Haddou mentioned it takes seven partly loaded Boeing 747s, or a minimum of 25 vans, to get one device to a buyer.
The arena’s first business set up of Prime NA came about at Intel‘s Oregon chip fabrication plant, or fab, in 2024. Best 5 of the gigantic machines have ever been shipped.
They’re now being ramped as much as build tens of millions of chips at the manufacturing unit flooring of the few corporations that may come up with the money for them: Taiwan Semiconductor Production Co., Samsung and Intel.
Prime NA is the unedited time of ASML’s Endmost Ultraviolet, or EUV, machines. ASML is the unique maker of EUV, the one lithography units on this planet in a position to projecting the smallest blueprints that build up essentially the most complex microchips. Chip designs from giants like Nvidia, Apple and AMD can’t be manufactured with out EUV.
ASML advised CNBC that Prime NA will in the end be old by way of all its EUV consumers. That incorporates alternative complex chipmakers like Micron, SK Hynix and Rapidus.
“This company has that market completely cornered,” mentioned Daniel Newman of The Futurum Staff.
Prime NA chipmaking device in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on April 24, 2025.
Magdalena Petrova
CNBC requested CEO Christophe Fouquet what’s preventing ASML from atmosphere the cost of its machines even upper. He defined that as machines proceed, they build it inexpensive to construct the chips themselves.
“Moore’s law says that we need to continue to drive costs down,” Fouquet mentioned. “There is a belief that if you drive costs down, you create more opportunity, so we need to be part of this game.”
Two main consumers have showed that Prime NA has proven large enhancements over ASML’s earlier EUV machines. At a convention in February, Intel mentioned it had old Prime NA to build about 30,000 wafers up to now, and that the device was once about two times as decent as its predecessors. At that very same convention, Samsung mentioned Prime NA may reduce its cycle time by 60%, that means its chips can whole extra operations consistent with 2d.
‘An overly dangerous funding’
Prime NA can power chip costs i’m sick as a result of those enhancements in velocity and function. Prime NA additionally improves turnover, that means extra of the chips on each and every wafer are usable.
That’s as a result of it will possibly mission chip designs at the next solution. Prime NA makes use of the similar procedure as EUV machines however with a bigger lens opening that permits for projection of smaller chip design in fewer steps.
“High NA means two things. First and foremost, shrink. So there’s more devices on a single wafer,” mentioned Jos Benschop, ASML’s govt vice chairman of era. “Secondly, by avoiding multiple patterning, you can make them faster and you can make them with higher yield.”
Benschop joined ASML in 1997, two years then it turned into a publicly traded corporate. Benschop after helped power the verdict to proceed all in on EUV. The era took greater than twenty years to create.
ASML govt VP of era Jos Benschop gave CNBC’s Katie Tarasov a take a look at Prime NA chipmaking in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on April 24, 2025.
Magdalena Petrova
“We barely made it. I think sometimes people forget that,” Fouquet mentioned. “It’s been a very risky investment because when we started, there was no guarantee the technology would work.”
By way of 2018, ASML proved the viability of EUV and main chipmakers began striking large orders for the machines. The theory, which gave the impression unattainable to many 20 years in the past, was once to assemble immense quantities of little rays of latter ultraviolet luminous, projecting it via mask with increasingly more mini chip designs, onto wafers of silicon handled with photoresist chemical compounds.
To assemble the EUV luminous, ASML shoots molten tin out of a nozzle at 50,000 droplets consistent with 2d, taking pictures each and every shed with a formidable laser that creates a plasma that’s warmer than the solar. The ones little explosions are what emit photons of the EUV luminous, with a wavelength of simply 13.5 nanometers.
Concerning the width of 5 DNA strands, EUV is so mini that it’s absorbed by way of all recognized elements, so the entire procedure has to occur in a vacuum. The EUV luminous bounces off mirrors that effort it via a lens, just like how a digicam works. To resolve for EUV getting absorbed by way of mirrors, German optics corporate Zeiss made particular mirrors only for ASML which might be the flattest artifical surfaces on this planet.
ASML’s used time DUV machines virtue much less actual rays of deep ultraviolet luminous with a wavelength of 193 nanometers. ASML nonetheless makes the machines — competing towards Nikon and Canon in Japan on DUV — however it’s the handiest corporate on this planet that’s succeeded at EUV lithography.
The Dutch corporate started growing the $400 million Prime NA machines round 2016. Prime NA machines paintings the similar as DUV, with the similar EUV luminous supply. However there’s one key extra.
Prime NA stands for top numerical aperture – that means it has a bigger lens opening, expanding the attitude at which the luminous is captured by way of the mirrors. Extra luminous coming in from steeper angles permits Prime NA machines to switch increasingly more mini designs onto the wafer in a single step. By way of comparability, decrease NA machines require a couple of projections of EUV luminous, via a couple of mask.
“When the number increases, it gets very complex process-wise and the yield goes down,” Fouquet mentioned.
Solution improves as NA will increase, bringing i’m sick the will for a couple of mask and exposures, preserve presen and cash. The price of the Prime NA device, on the other hand, is going up.
“The bigger the mirror you have to use and therefore the bigger the system,” Fouquet mentioned.
Those machines additionally take in a excess quantity of energy.
“If we don’t improve the power efficiency of our AI chips over time, the training of the models could consume the entire worldwide energy and that could happen around 2035,” Fouquet mentioned. That’s why ASML has decreased the facility wanted consistent with wafer publicity by way of greater than 60% since 2018, he mentioned.
ASML’s Assia Haddou displays CNBC’s Katie Tarasov a Prime NA chipmaking device in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on April 24, 2025.
Magdalena Petrova
China, price lists and U.S. enlargement
ASML is understood for its groundbreaking EUV machines, however its used DUV machines nonetheless made up 60% of commercial in 2024. ASML bought 44 EUV machines utmost month, with a price ticket launch at $220 million. DUV machines are a ways inexpensive, starting from $5 million to $90 million, however ASML bought 374 of the legacy machines in 2024.
China is a big purchaser of the ones DUV methods, making up 49% of ASML’s industry in the second one quarter of 2024. Fouquet advised CNBC this top in gross sales to China got here as a result of a “huge backlog” in orders that ASML wasn’t in a position to fill till utmost month. He mentioned industry in China will have to be again to the “historical normal” of between 20% and 25% in 2025.
U.S. export controls block ASML from promoting EUV to China. It’s a prevent that began underneath the primary Trump management. Newman of The Futurum Staff mentioned it’s a “real long shot” that China may create its personal EUV machines, rather making units like smartphones the use of essentially the most complex chips conceivable with DUV.
U.S. worry over complex tech making its approach to China has sped up amid the generative synthetic prudence race. That increase has additionally despatched chip shares hovering, together with ASML’s, which accident an all-time top in July.
ASML’s proportion value has declined greater than 30% since, because the chip business faces key uncertainties similar to President Donald Trump’s price lists.
Benschop advised CNBC that ASML merely doesn’t know the way price lists will affect the corporate. With about 800 world providers, tariff implications for ASML are advanced.
Creating a unmarried Prime NA device calls for many steps of imports and exports. The device’s 4 modules are made within the U.S., Netherlands and Germany, after they’re shipped to the Netherlands for meeting and trying out, the place they’re disassembled once more for cargo to chip fabs in playgrounds just like the U.S. or Asia.
For years, Asia has made up greater than 80% of ASML’s industry. The U.S. proportion sat round 17% in 2024 however is rising speedy. ASML has 44,000 staff globally, and eight,500 of them are founded within the U.S. throughout 18 workplaces.
A lot of ASML’s 2024 Prime NA shipments was at Intel, which is development unutilized fabs in Ohio and Arizona. The U.S.-based chipmaker has struggled in recent times, however Fouquet mentioned that Intel extra a “formidable partner” for ASML and that it’s “very critical” for U.S. semiconductor self determination.
Taiwan-based TSMC is a ways forward of Intel in advancing chip nodes. CNBC just lately visited TSMC’s unutilized fab north of Phoenix, which is now in quantity manufacturing. As essentially the most complex chip fab on U.S. park, the will for Prime NA there’ll most likely come quickly.
ASML, in the meantime, is development its first U.S. coaching heart in Arizona. Fouquet advised CNBC it’s going to noticeable within the “next few months” with a objective of coaching 1,200 crowd on EUV and DUV each and every month. It’s “a capacity that will not only meet what is needed in the U.S., but will be used also to train even more people worldwide,” he mentioned.
The Dutch corporate plans to additional build up the numerical aperture on its later device, Hyper NA.
Fouquet advised CNBC that ASML has some draft perceptible designs for this later device, and that, “it’s not necessarily a difficult product.” He expects the will for Hyper NA to come back “between 2032 and 2035.” He wouldn’t speculate on value.
For now, ASML is serious about assembly call for for Prime NA. It plans to send a minimum of 5 extra methods this month and ramping to a manufacturing capability of 20 machines in a couple of years.
