SEOUL, September 08 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics fighting on two fronts — SK hynix in advanced memory and Chinese rivals in legacy chips — is leaning on ASML's near-monopoly in cutting-edge lithography to keep its manufacturing edge in the AI race.
The strategy goes beyond buying the industry's most advanced lithography machines.
Samsung plans to bring High-NA EUV into advanced DRAM mass production by 2028 while joining an ASML-led effort to develop a new 12-inch photomask platform that could eventually replace the 6-inch format the semiconductor industry has relied on for decades.
Together, the initiatives offer a glimpse into how Samsung is preparing its manufacturing technology for the next phase of semiconductor scaling across both memory and foundry operations.
Samsung said Tuesday it is expanding its strategic partnership with Dutch chipmaking equipment giant ASML on High-NA extreme ultraviolet lithography and other next-generation semiconductor manufacturing technologies.
Taking High-NA into DRAM
High-NA EUV is the successor to the EUV lithography systems currently used to manufacture the world's most advanced chips.
Lithography is one of the most critical steps in semiconductor manufacturing, using light to transfer microscopic circuit patterns from a photomask onto a silicon wafer.
High-NA, short for high numerical aperture, improves EUV resolution, allowing chipmakers to print finer features as transistor and memory-cell dimensions continue to shrink.
Samsung plans to introduce High-NA EUV into high-volume manufacturing of advanced DRAM by 2028, which the company says would be the industry's first such application in memory production.
The technology could extend the DRAM scaling roadmap by enabling finer patterning while reducing reliance on increasingly complicated multi-patterning processes.
Fewer process steps could simplify manufacturing and improve efficiency, although the economics will ultimately depend on yields, equipment productivity and production costs.
High-NA carries particular significance for Samsung because it operates both major memory and foundry businesses.
Unlike memory-focused manufacturers, Samsung could eventually deploy the technology across advanced DRAM as well as logic chips produced by its foundry division, giving it a broader manufacturing base on which to develop and validate the process.
The push comes as competition over next-generation DRAM intensifies.
Samsung has moved aggressively to introduce newer manufacturing processes into high-value memory, including sixth-generation 10-nanometer-class, or 1c, DRAM for its HBM4 products.
As DRAM scaling becomes increasingly difficult beyond current generations, lithography is becoming another battleground in determining how far chipmakers can shrink memory cells while improving performance and power efficiency.
SK hynix is moving on a similar timetable.
The Samsung rival has also said it is targeting 2028 to apply High-NA EUV processes to DRAM mass production, underscoring how closely the next stage of the Korean memory race could be fought not only over HBM design and packaging but also over the manufacturing processes behind the chips.
Beyond the machine
Samsung and ASML are simultaneously looking further ahead at a less visible but potentially consequential component of semiconductor manufacturing: the photomask.
Samsung will join ASML's Large Size Mask Consortium, an industry initiative developing a 12-inch photomask platform for High-NA EUV.
Photomasks act as highly precise templates containing the circuit patterns that lithography systems transfer onto wafers.
The semiconductor industry has relied on the 6-inch photomask format for decades.
High-NA EUV, however, introduces a new constraint.
While the technology can print finer features than conventional EUV, its current configuration has a smaller exposure field. Large and complex chips can therefore require patterns to be exposed separately and then connected through a process known as stitching.
A larger mask platform is designed to ease that limitation.
Samsung said moving to 12-inch masks could reduce stitching constraints, improve fab productivity and lower chipmaking costs, allowing manufacturers to capture more of the resolution advantage offered by High-NA EUV.
ASML is working with major semiconductor companies including Samsung, TSMC, Intel and Nvidia on the larger-mask initiative as the industry prepares High-NA EUV for broader use in advanced manufacturing. SK hynix has also said it is evaluating participation in the consortium.
The project highlights a broader shift in the semiconductor race.
As scaling becomes harder and more expensive, simply owning the newest lithography machine may no longer be enough. The surrounding infrastructure — masks, process technology, productivity, yields and the ability to integrate them into mass production — increasingly determines whether an advanced manufacturing technology is economically viable.
ASML expects larger masks eventually to allow High-NA systems to manufacture chips comparable in size to those made with today's EUV equipment while improving system productivity.
The Dutch company plans to demonstrate a pilot line using the larger masks around 2031, with the technology targeted to be ready for high-volume manufacturing by 2033.
The longer timeline separates the 12-inch mask project from Samsung's nearer-term plan to introduce High-NA EUV into DRAM production in 2028.
Yet the two efforts point in the same direction: building the manufacturing infrastructure needed to keep semiconductor scaling moving as conventional approaches become increasingly complex and costly.
"The AI era is transforming the semiconductor industry and increasing the importance of technological innovation across the entire value chain," Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and CEO Jun Young-hyun said.
"By further strengthening our collaboration with ASML, we are helping lay the foundation for the next generation of AI and semiconductor innovation," he added.
ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet described Samsung as one of the Dutch company's most important long-standing innovation partners.
"As the industry enters a new era driven by artificial intelligence, close collaboration with our customers becomes even more important," Fouquet said.
For Samsung, the High-NA roadmap represents more than the adoption of another expensive piece of equipment.
The semiconductor race is increasingly shifting from who can design the fastest chip to who can assemble the manufacturing ecosystem capable of producing ever-smaller and more complex chips economically and at scale.
Samsung's bet is that High-NA EUV — first in advanced DRAM and eventually supported by a new generation of larger photomasks — can help anchor that next manufacturing era.
Samsung Electronics shares closed 2.96 percent higher at 278,000 won on Tuesday after gaining 5.68 percent in the previous session.
AJP Takeaways
- Samsung Electronics plans to introduce High-NA EUV into advanced DRAM mass production by 2028, a move it says would mark the industry's first such application in memory manufacturing.
- Samsung is also joining an ASML-led initiative to develop 12-inch photomasks, aimed at overcoming stitching constraints and improving productivity as chipmakers push High-NA EUV into more advanced production.
- The two initiatives highlight Samsung's broader strategy of using its presence in both memory and foundry to build a manufacturing ecosystem around next-generation lithography, as competition with SK hynix and Chinese chipmakers intensifies.
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