All Eyes Are on EUV Lithography Machines

At present, the players that have truly achieved large-scale EUV mass production remain highly concentrated. The core group still consists of five companies: TSMC, Samsung, Intel, SK Hynix, and Micron.

Among them, TSMC is one of the earliest to commercialize EUV and the one with the largest application scale. In 2019, TSMC formally introduced EUV into its N7+ process and achieved commercial mass production. Subsequent advanced nodes such as N5 and N3 further increased the number of EUV exposure layers, gradually transforming EUV from a tool used only on a few critical layers into a core tool for advanced logic manufacturing.

Samsung Electronics is advancing EUV on both advanced logic and DRAM product lines. In addition to its advanced process foundry business, Samsung has already introduced EUV into the mass production of 14 nm-class and 12 nm-class DRAM, allowing EUV to expand from advanced logic into memory chip manufacturing.

Intel’s introduction of EUV came relatively late, but its progress has been rapid. Intel 4 became its first process to adopt EUV on a large scale, and subsequent nodes such as Intel 3 and 18A have continued to expand its use. At the same time, Intel is one of the earliest chipmakers to receive and deploy ASML’s High-NA EUV equipment, conducting early technology validation for next-generation processes such as 14A.

Among memory manufacturers, SK Hynix began introducing EUV into the mass production of 1a nm-class DRAM in 2021 and has since continuously expanded its application scope. In 2025, the company installed High-NA EUV equipment at its M16 fab in South Korea, bringing the next-generation EUV technology into DRAM R&D and future mass-production systems ahead of schedule.

Micron was the latest among the three major DRAM makers to formally introduce EUV. It first adopted EUV on a large scale at the 1γ (1-gamma) DRAM node and began advancing related product mass production in Taiwan and Japan starting in 2025.