ASML, the Dutch company that makes the machines used to print the most advanced computer chips, is working with major manufacturers on a change to its High-NA extreme ultraviolet systems that would let them produce substantially larger chips.

The change involves developing larger photomasks. That sounds like a component upgrade. It addresses one of the more awkward constraints in modern semiconductor manufacturing.

How chips are actually printed

Chip manufacturing is photographic in principle. A pattern is held on a mask, light is projected through it, and the pattern is reproduced at reduced scale onto a silicon wafer coated in light-sensitive material. Repeat with many layers and you have an integrated circuit.

The wavelength of the light sets the smallest feature that can be printed. Extreme ultraviolet lithography uses very short wavelengths, and ASML is the only company in the world that makes EUV machines — which is why a Dutch firm sits at the centre of global technology policy.

High-NA refers to a higher numerical aperture: an optical system that gathers light over a wider angle and can resolve finer detail. It is the next step for printing smaller features.

The trade-off nobody wanted

Here is the constraint. Increasing numerical aperture improves resolution but shrinks the exposure field — the area printed in one go. High-NA systems therefore print finer features across a smaller patch.

Current leading EUV equipment can expose chips approaching 800 square millimetres. That matters because the processors used for AI training are enormous by historical standards, and designers have been pushing against the limit. A machine that prints finer features but cannot print a large die forces designers to choose between resolution and size.

There are workarounds. A large design can be stitched together from multiple exposures, at some cost in yield and complexity, or split into smaller chiplets connected by advanced packaging — the approach much of the industry has already adopted. Larger photomasks would reduce the need for either.

Why changing the mask is hard

The photomask has been standardised at essentially the same physical format for decades. An entire global supply chain is built around it: mask blanks, mask writers, inspection tools, cleaning equipment, handling systems, and the fabs themselves.

Changing the format means every one of those has to change too, from multiple suppliers, in coordination, without disrupting production of chips currently being manufactured. That is why ASML is working with manufacturers on it rather than announcing a product, and why the timeline is long.

It is also why this is worth reporting despite being incremental in appearance. Standards that have held for decades change rarely, and when they do the effects propagate across an industry for years.

The wider picture

Intel has been an early adopter of High-NA, work that could help its foundry business compete for advanced manufacturing customers while TSMC and Samsung prepare their own adoption. Larger dies matter most to exactly the customers those three are competing for.

It also connects to what governments are doing. China announced this week that it intends to quadruple national AI computing capacity by 2030, which we report separately today. Compute targets are ultimately statements about chips, and chips are limited by machines that one company in the Netherlands makes and that export controls govern.

Announcements about national AI capacity get attention. The photomask standard does not. The second is closer to the actual constraint.

Sources

• Tech Startups, Top tech news today, 8 September 2026, on ASML’s work with manufacturers on larger photomasks for High-NA EUV
• ASML published material on High-NA extreme ultraviolet lithography
• Standard references on photolithography, numerical aperture and reticle field size
• Our report on China’s AI computing capacity plan, 9 September 2026