Semiconductors
ASML: The Dutch Monopoly on EUV Lithography Machines
ASML is the only company in the world that manufactures working extreme ultraviolet lithography machines at production scale, making it the single chokepoint for leading-edge chip manufacturing. Each high-NA EUV system costs roughly 350 million euros and is required to fabricate chips at 3nm, 2nm, and smaller nodes.
EUV Mirrors: The Smoothest Objects Ever Manufactured
Because 13.5nm extreme ultraviolet light is absorbed by virtually all materials including glass, ASML's EUV lithography machines use reflective optics built from 40-80 alternating molybdenum-silicon layers that achieve roughly 70% reflectivity via Bragg interference. Surface roughness is specified at 2.3 silicon atoms average bump height, making them the smoothest macroscopic objects ever made.
EUV Light Source: How ASML Makes 13.5nm Light from Tin Plasma
ASML's EUV lithography machines generate 13.5-nanometer extreme ultraviolet light by vaporizing molten tin droplets with a 20,000-watt CO2 laser, producing plasma at roughly 220,000 Kelvin — about 40 times hotter than the surface of the Sun. The system hits 50,000 droplets per second with three laser pulses each, never missing.
EUV Origin Story: From a 1986 Japanese Rejection to ASML's 2015 Korea Demo
Extreme ultraviolet lithography took three decades from first demonstration to commercial production, surviving a 1996 US government funding cut, a 250 million dollar industry rescue by Intel, AMD, and Motorola, and a 5.4 billion dollar customer co-investment that bought equity in ASML to keep R&D alive through the low point of 2012-2013.