ASML still chewing on high-NA’s potential successor

As the roll-out of high-NA EUV lithography has started, a potential successor is still on ASML’s radar. “Hyper-NA with an NA higher than 0.7 is certainly an opportunity that will become more visible from around 2030,” CTO Martin van den Brink states in ASML’s 2023 annual report. “It’s likely to be most relevant for logic – and it will need to be more affordable than double patterning – but it may also be an opportunity for DRAM.”

An ASML spokesperson told Bits&Chips that the technological and economic viability of hyper-NA technology is being investigated, but no decision has been made to go ahead with it. He declined to comment on when that decision will be made. Considering the 2030 time frame mentioned by Van den Brink and the years of preparation needed to develop a new generation of EUV scanners, it’s not unreasonable to expect a commitment sooner rather than later. High-NA got the green light in 2015, well before low-NA EUV was introduced into high-volume manufacturing.

By 2030, chipmakers may require high-NA double patterning, at least for a select number of layers. At the same time, dimensional scaling is predicted to continue until at least 2036, per the roadmap proposed by Imec last year. This underlines the potential opportunity for another generation of EUV scanners, provided cost targets can be met.