ASML Investor Day takeaways: hybrid bonding, a new playground for litho

2D integration on chips is starting to become so costly that semiconductor manufacturers are increasingly choosing to go 3D. “One thing we see happening when it comes to transistor density is more and more 3D integration,” said ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet at his company’s recent Investor Day. “If you can put fewer transistors per unit area 2D, you’re going to try to stack them.”

Fouquet sees it everywhere, he told investors last November. “If we look at 3D NAND, if we look at DRAM, if we look at logic – the technology that will do the job is wafer bonding. We believe that wafer bonding will be everywhere.”