April 2024 is just around the corner, when ASML will celebrate its 40th anniversary - as a leading company in the semiconductor industry, the company headquartered in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, is known for its long-term provision of hardware, software and services to chip manufacturers for the large-scale production of integrated circuits (chips).
A few days ago, ASML announced that its full-year 2023 net sales reached 27.6 billion euros, with a gross margin of 51.13%, with a net profit of 7.8 billion euros; At the same time, ASML expects net sales in 2024 to be broadly in line with 2023, with net sales of approximately €5.0 billion to €5.5 billion and gross margin of approximately 48% to 49% in the first quarter of 2024. The excellent performance and market influence are once again equated with the industry's expectations for ASML, how do lithography giants achieve steady and far-reaching results in the microcosm?
The "iron triangle" of seamless synergy, the "quality controller" of the microcosm
When a ship or a plane leaves the Netherlands and heads to fabs around the world, ASML's equipment may be in it. Since then, ASML has driven the "iron triangle" (i.e., lithography machines, computational lithography, optical and electron beam metrology) to work closely together in the core of the thousands of processes related to chip manufacturing, and has helped chipmakers produce smaller, more powerful and smarter chips with panoramic lithography solutions.
ASML lithography technology is renowned in the industry for its sophistication. ASML lithography machines project the circuit patterns required for chip fabrication onto the wafer, and lithography plays the role of defining the process window. The more concrete description I heard is: "In China, the average number of wafers per ASML lithography machine in a year is close to 2 million, and the length of connecting them is equivalent to 5 Huangpu River, and the superposition is equivalent to 3 Oriental Pearl Towers." ”
In order to avoid deviations in the chip manufacturing process, ASML electron beam metrology must "stand up", which has the advantage of high resolution and large field of view, more accurately scan the wafer to collect data and feed back to the lithography machine, and complete the measurement and inspection with high quality.
If lithography machines, optics and electron beam measurement are the strength of the responsibility, then the first responsibility in the "Iron Triangle" is the first to recommend computational lithography software. Through its mathematical and physical model, it accurately analyzes the real physical and chemical processes in lithography, explores the best lithography solutions in complex conditions, and guides subsequent lithography behaviors. ASML staff once put forward a specific case - a customer used ASML computational lithography products to optimize the free-form imaging light source and the matching mask layout, and made imaging enhancements for key patterns and defect-prone patterns, which increased the process window by more than 30%!
Over the past decades, with the rapid development of integrated circuit manufacturing technology and the continuous scientific and technological revolution in the microscopic world, it has become the diligent pursuit of ASML's technological transformation to promote chip miniaturization, improve yield and production capacity. Supplemented by the two major technologies of computational lithography and measurement, it is deeply involved in the manufacturing process, and as a "quality controller", it accurately guards the quality pass, and the three work together to create a solid foundation for the industry to move forward!
More than a panoramic lithography solution! Since its establishment in 1984, ASML has been highly integrated with thousands of external first-class vendors, providing strong product technology and maintaining active R&D investment (ASML expects R&D costs to be about 10700 million euros); In terms of internal cohesion, the ASML team has always adhered to the "3C culture", namely challenge, collaboration and care, providing infinite possibilities for the career development of "ASML people" and fully tapping their own potential to provide customers with first-class services.
The lithography giant is celebrating its 40th anniversary! In 2024, ASML is continuously expanding its manufacturing capabilities, improving its technical strength, and pursuing excellence in the integrated circuit industry, the "crown jewel" of high-end manufacturing, with industry-leading product accuracy and production efficiency.