“Orders have not changed expectations, confidence has been re-evaluated” Bank of America: ASML.US (ASML.US) Big Three cooperate to consolidate the long-term roadmap for High-NA

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on Tuesday, ASML.US (ASML.US) became the focus of the market, and Bank of America appreciated the additional chip manufacturing equipment supply agreements reached by the company with TSM.US (TSM.US), Intel (INTC.US) and Samsung. The bank's analyst Saimama reiterated Asma's “buy” rating and kept the target price of 2,452 euros unchanged. He said that promoting the construction of a 12-inch photomask ecosystem is critical to overcoming the current limitations of high-NA technology.

On September 8, Dutch lithography giant Asmack issued a series of announcements announcing that it had reached cooperation commitments with the world's three largest chip makers TSMC, Intel, and Samsung Electronics for the next generation of high numerical aperture (high-NA) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment. The three giants simultaneously revealed their high-NA mass production schedules and jointly launched a more far-reaching industry initiative: promoting the transition from the 6-inch photomask standard that has been used for decades to the 12-inch large photomask version.

High-na EUV is regarded as an epoch-making upgrade to existing EUV lithography technology. Currently, the numerical aperture (NA) of commercial EUV devices is 0.33, and the high-NA EUV raised this index to 0.55, greatly improving the lithography resolution. This means that chip makers can integrate more transistors on the same wafer size — the transistor size can be reduced by about 1.7 times and the density increased by nearly 3 times.

Bank of America analyst Didier Scemama (Didier Scemama) wrote in a report to clients: “These announcements are in line with our predictions for the pace of adoption of high-NA (high numerical aperture) EUV devices (5 units this year, 6 units next year, 20 units in 2030).”

He pointed out, “Although these orders have not changed our financial forecasts, they have significantly strengthened the market's confidence in the collaborative advancement of the industrial chain around a unified High-NA roadmap. Intel's mass production practice shows that customers can now apply this technology under the existing mask version; the joint initiative of TSMC, Asmack, and Samsung has paved a longer-term path to fully unleash the production efficiency advantages of High-NA in the future.”

“This is particularly important for the growing number of AI accelerators and mask size GPUs, so that relevant designs can avoid yield risks caused by the splicing process during manufacturing,” Saimama further stated. “The goal of this initiative is to build a 12-inch mask pilot line by 2031, and to be ready for mass production by 2033.”