Twice as expensive as the current generation
ASML has previously warned that its High-NA Twinscan EXE EUV semiconductor manufacturing facility will be very expensive. According to recent data, it is twice as expensive as the previous generation system.
A new high aperture number machine will cost about $380 million, while a Low-NA Twinscan NXE EUV machine costs about $170 million.
Despite the crazy price, ASML already has orders for 10–20 machines from giants such as Intel, Hynix and others. By 2028, the company plans to produce 20 such units per year.
High-NA Twinscan EXE EUV — ASML's crowning achievement. Each such installation weighs 150 tons, and 250 engineers will spend six months on its assembly!
High-NA EUV Twinscan EXE is capable of 8 nm resolution (not to be confused with process technology), which is significantly better than existing low NA EUV scanners that can only reach 13 nm per exposure.
This allows the use of transistors that are approximately 1.7 times smaller, resulting in an almost threefold increase in transistor density. In addition, all this is critical for the production of chips using technological processes less than 3 nm, to which companies have already come as close as possible.