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High Numerical Aperture (NA) lithography machines just became available earlier this year. Intel was the first global foundry to purchase one in an attempt to one-up its rivals in the race to ever-shrinking nodes. Now, Samsung foundry has reportedly jumped on board the High-NA train; a new report states the company is joining Intel in the High-NA arms race. With Samsung now onboard, TSMC is the only major foundry still holding off on adopting the new technology.
Word of Samsung’s plans comes from a site called Seoul Economic Daily, which includes a photo of Samsung executives alongside a High-NA lithography machine at ASML’s headquarters in the Netherlands. It was previously reported that Intel had purchased all of ASML’s High-NA machines for 2024, but perhaps that is no longer the case. The Korean reports say ASML made eight machines, and Intel purchased seven, leaving one for Samsung to put in its cart.
This shows the top piece of the High-NA machine being lowered into place.
Credit: ASML
The machine in question is the Twinscan EXE:5000, and it reportedly comes with a price tag of around $380 million. Tom’s Hardware reports the machine features a 0.55 numerical aperture, classifying it as High-NA. It is reportedly expected to be functional in early 2025, around the same time that Intel is expected to have its machine in Oregon up and running. Still, Intel will have almost a year’s head start on testing and doing research on it. Both companies will deploy the machines for advanced future nodes beyond 2nm, with Intel stating it will use High-NA for its Intel 14a node.
Samsung will use the machine to fabricate DRAM and logic, as it’s battling competitors on multiple fronts, including TSMC and Intel for CPUs and SK Hynix and Micron for DRAM and NAND development. It’s not expected to enter into mass production using High-NA for several years, though—until 2026 or so, which matches Intel’s timeline. TSMC is reportedly considering adopting High-NA when it arrives at 1nm, roughly two generations beyond its current node (3nm, 2nm, 1.4nm, etc.), so that could be up to six years in the future, if not longer.