The Apollo programme

‘It’s like you actually believe him,’ wrote ASML’s PR representative when she emailed me back the article I’d sent her so she could correct any factual errors. It was early 2008; I’d interviewed Phil Ware, a senior fellow for lithography at Canon and a vocal opponent of EUV. Hardly a neutral party, of course, but one of the few critics within my reach who was willing to speak on the record. I presented his arguments to ASML and I wrote the article ‘No guarantee that EUV will succeed’. I thought the piece was balanced to the point of boredom, but the PR rep clearly thought otherwise.

So who should I believe? The question had me in its grip for quite a long time, and I suspect the fate of EUV lithography occupied a larger-than-average share of your attention in recent years, too, even if you don’t work in semiconductors. We’re talking about the heart of the high-tech industry, after all.

I wanted to believe that EUV would succeed. ASML is a successful company that has blown away its competition through a combination of technological innovation and prudent investment policy. But the fact the EUV development process was largely a black box didn’t make it easy to keep the faith. Now and then we’d get an update on source power or some other performance criterion, but the how and the why usually remained unclear. What’s more, the deadlines on the roadmap kept getting pushed further and further into the future.