ASMLThe latest machine from ASML, the High-N/A
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 12:08
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Nando Kasteleijn
editor Tech
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Nando Kasteleijn
editor Tech
Before you can enter the factory of chip machine maker ASML, you have to go through a thorough procedure. It starts with putting on a special protective suit: a headgear, overalls, socks, face mask, shoes and gloves. Then you go through a shower of wind. Only then are you inside.
Yesterday, the NOS, together with other media, was given exceptional access to the heart of the company, the so-called cleanroom: the place where every speck of dust is too much and employees in white and blue suits work day and night on the chip machines. The air is ten thousand times cleaner than in an operating room. You won’t notice it yourself, but it is very important for the company.
No makeup and no smoking
The precautions go so far that you are not allowed to wear makeup and you are not allowed to smoke just before entering. You don’t just come to this part of the campus. Special training is required. Members of the board of directors cannot enter the cleanroom independently without this training.
The tour starts in a corridor system, the place where every employee starts and ends their shift. From there you can go to all kinds of halls, closed by large shutters with windows, where parts of the machine are being worked on. There is a quiet atmosphere, with employees standing around a laptop, for example. The halls themselves are high, which is necessary because a crane must fit above the machine.
It is also warm inside: 21 degrees. And everyone always wears a full protective suit. You can’t get in without that. When you can take off your face mask again after being inside for an hour, it feels wonderful. On average, 300 to 400 people work there per day. Apparently working on the expensive machines is also a bit like tinkering with cars, because former car mechanics also work there.
Disadvantage
It is not without reason that the company is opening its doors now. Work has been going on for more than ten years on a new type of machine, the so-called High N/A version of the EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet), the highlight of the tour. It is the first time, apart from King Willem-Alexander and the president of South Korea, that outsiders have seen the machine.
Chip manufacturer Intel was the first to order the device and received the first parts at the beginning of this year. That company is lagging behind Samsung and TSMC and hopes to make up for it with this type of machine.
According to ASML, other important customers have also committed to an order, although TSMC, for example, is also keeping its cards close to its chest. The urgency that Intel feels is not yet felt in Taiwan.
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It is a major project for ASML, first of all because it is a major step technologically. But it is also a factor that the company has often been in the news for years because it is a plaything in the geopolitical conflict between the US and China. This is an opportunity to draw attention to what the people in Veldhoven themselves are really all about.
In addition, export to China is not actually an issue with this latest machine. Because it is already certain that it will never go there, which means that the US, but also Taiwan and South Korea, can increase their technological lead in the coming years.
“This machine will ensure that all the computing capacity needed for artificial intelligence, all the storage capacity and all the data will all be available,” CEO Peter Wennink said last month at the presentation of the annual figures. “Without this machine that will be a problem.”
In other words: the machine symbolizes the future of ASML. It has a hefty price tag: a copy costs between 350 and 400 million euros. The machine is considered the most complex system ever created by man.
Even thinner lines
The most important innovation is that this machine is able to ‘print’ even thinner lines on chips. Mirrors specially developed for ASML are used, from the German company Zeiss. These guide the EUV light through the machine. The two companies have been working closely together for decades. ASML cannot build machines without Zeiss mirrors.
These thin lines are the heart of the computer chips and are called transistors. The smaller they are and the more you have, the faster the device works. The latest iPhone has no fewer than 19 billion. The trick is to be able to fit more and more on approximately the same surface area.
In a nutshell, that is ASML’s biggest challenge, whose machines print lines with thicknesses of nanometers. That is unimaginably small, invisible to the human eye. A CD is about 1 mm thick, 1 nanometer is a million times thinner.
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Paradoxically, in order to print even thinner lines, the machines have to become increasingly larger. This is mainly due to the aforementioned mirrors. To ship one machine, no fewer than seven Boeing 747 aircraft are needed. The transport of one ASML machine therefore equates to more than 2,500 passengers, something they are not necessarily proud of in Veldhoven.
During the tour you can clearly see how big the machine is. The device towers far above the group of journalists and, with its fourteen meters in length, is reminiscent of a large truck. A tangle of cables, water pipes, sounds and housings makes it an impressive whole.
For the time being, the chip in your phone or laptop does not yet come from a new machine. It will not be used for mass production until 2026, twelve years after its design began.
2024-02-10 11:08:25
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