Skip to content
Substrata
Join

Machine · NL

EUV lithography scanners

The machines that print the finest circuit patterns. One company on earth builds them.

Searching is free and needs no AI. Summaries use your own AI model.

Severity
How this is computedSum of four judged scores, each 0–3: concentration + substitution + lead time + inelasticity.Method →Code →
How hard it binds, 0 to 12
When it bites
Now
judged 2026-09-15
Evidence
Verified
3 maker rows

AI & computeAdvanced manufacturingSemiconductorsWork on it: roles and trainingReport an error on GitHub

01Key numbers

dated, each linked to its source

What the text on this page claims, and the number behind it

  • its order backlog is measured in tens of billions of euros Measured

    ASML reports its total order backlog each year; the queue in years is not published, so the earlier "measured in years" was replaced by what is.

    Order backlog: SourcedASML Q4 2025 financial resultsOpen the source → EUR bn, 31 Dec 2025EUV systems with revenue recognized: SourcedASML Q4 2025 press conference presentationOpen the source → units, 2025

  • One company on earth builds them. Measured

    Every EUV system recognised is ASML’s; its own production capacity is the ceiling on the world’s supply.

    EUV systems with revenue recognized: SourcedASML Q4 2025 press conference presentationOpen the source → units, 2025Low-NA EUV production capacity: SourcedASML Q2 2026 financial resultsOpen the source → units/year, 2026

4 (Computed: Count of dated values in a series, or of series matching the filters, across the committed corpus and the official statistics fetched on schedule.) more series on this bottleneck

Every series on every bottleneck — filter, compare and download.

02Why it holds things up

One company on earth builds them, its order backlog is measured in tens of billions of euros, and no second source is in progress. Every leading-edge wafer in the world is downstream of one factory.

Part of the process · Compute, which takes quarters to years to loosen once somebody decides to.

03Severity

judged 2026-09-15 · a judgement, not a measurement

How this is computedSum of four judged scores, each 0–3: concentration + substitution + lead time + inelasticity.Method →Code → / 12

How few suppliers qualify
Estimate, not a measurementOne maker, a backlog in the tens of billions of euros, no second source in progress. The definition of a chokepoint.By Substrata, open to challenge · 2026-09-15 / 3
How hard to replace
Estimate, not a measurementOne maker, a backlog in the tens of billions of euros, no second source in progress. The definition of a chokepoint.By Substrata, open to challenge · 2026-09-15 / 3
Decision to new capacity
Estimate, not a measurementOne maker, a backlog in the tens of billions of euros, no second source in progress. The definition of a chokepoint.By Substrata, open to challenge · 2026-09-15 / 3
Can the buyer walk away
Estimate, not a measurementOne maker, a backlog in the tens of billions of euros, no second source in progress. The definition of a chokepoint.By Substrata, open to challenge · 2026-09-15 / 3

One maker, a backlog in the tens of billions of euros, no second source in progress. The definition of a chokepoint.

04Who makes it

3 verified of 3 rows
OrganisationStepEvidence
ASMLASML NAMakes itVerified source ↗
Carl Zeiss SMTPrivateSupplies a critical partVerified source ↗
TrumpfPrivateSupplies a critical partVerified source ↗

05What it rests on, and what rests on it

each row quotes the page it rests on

Depends on

Depended on by

  • Leading-edge foundry capacity
    “EUV technology enables TSMC to keep driving chip scaling as the shorter wavelength of EUV light is better able to print the nanometer-scale features of advanced technology designs.”

    pr.tsmc.com · primary source

A recorded dependency is a sentence, not a share, a volume or a contract. Walk it on a portfolio →

06Rules that govern it

All policy →

07What would remove it

  • Nanoimprint lithographyEstimate, not a measurementCanon commercialised the FPA-1200NZ2C in October 2023 and shipped one to the Texas Institute for Electronics in 2024, at 14 nm minimum linewidth — equivalent to a 5 nm node. That is a real machine doing real patterning, but not volume logic production: throughput, defectivity and the supply of 1:1 imprint masks are the open questions, and a stamp touching the wafer fails differently from light.By Substrata, open to challenge · 2026-09-18Supporting source → · Prototype at meaningful scale

    It patterns at leading-edge dimensions without an EUV scanner at all, so demand that today has exactly one supplier would have somewhere else to go.

All science →

08Science pipeline

57 papers, preprints and grants collected, unreviewed
  1. Research46 (Computed: Items per stage = papers, preprints and grants collected for the bottleneck whose relevance score is 2 or more, placed on a stage by the rule in lib/science.ts; judgements are counted separately.)+1 (Computed: Items first collected in the last 7 days whose publication or award date is within the last 30 days.) new
  2. Lab7 (Computed: Items per stage = papers, preprints and grants collected for the bottleneck whose relevance score is 2 or more, placed on a stage by the rule in lib/science.ts; judgements are counted separately.)+1 (Computed: Items first collected in the last 7 days whose publication or award date is within the last 30 days.) new
  3. Pilot4 (Computed: Items per stage = papers, preprints and grants collected for the bottleneck whose relevance score is 2 or more, placed on a stage by the rule in lib/science.ts; judgements are counted separately.)
  4. Early0 (Computed: Items per stage = papers, preprints and grants collected for the bottleneck whose relevance score is 2 or more, placed on a stage by the rule in lib/science.ts; judgements are counted separately.)
  5. Scale0 (Computed: Items per stage = papers, preprints and grants collected for the bottleneck whose relevance score is 2 or more, placed on a stage by the rule in lib/science.ts; judgements are counted separately.)

judged, with a citation claimed, no citationNumber: papers, preprints and grants the feeds collected — unreviewed

The full pipeline, by stage →

09Who could fund relief

Is funding the constraint? · Money is not the constraint

One supplier, sold out, and the buyers are the most cash-rich companies on earth. Every marginal dollar is already bidding for the same machines.

A mandate covering the kind of asset that would relieve this row. Not a claim that anyone has funded one, and not advice.

10What has happened

1 dated
  1. 2026-04-15
    LoosensCapacityNL

    ASML plans to ship more than 60 EUV scanners in 2026, high-NA and low-NA together, on memory demand.

    WhoASML

    techpowerup.com ↗official source

    The sentence that says so

    “In the latest Q1 2026 quarterly figures, ASML announced plans to ship over 60 EUV units this year, including both High-NA and Low-NA EUV lithography scanners.”

All events →

11What this holds up

1 loop
  • Siliconone turn: Months

    Worst judgement on this loop: How this is computedThe highest severity score among the bottlenecks recorded as gates on the loop.Method →Code →, judged 2026-09-15

A loop is one design, build and measure turn. Severity is a dated judgement on a 0–12 scale, not a measurement, and the judgements are not added together — the figure shown is the worst single one.

Discussion

Comments use threadkit (permission is participation). Sign in with OrangeCat to write. Fact-check is the same assistant as Ask, grounded in the corpus.

  • No comments yet.

Need an account? Sign in.