ASML has confirmed that Intel is leveraging its High NA EUV technology to produce its Panther Lake chips on its most advanced 18A process node.
ASML's High NA EUV Enters High-Volume Logic Production With Intel's "18A" Panther Lake Chips
Today, ASML announced that its first High NA EUV "EXE" equipment has been installed at Intel Foundry and is being used to make the first Panther Lake 18A products. The first of these High NA EUV lithography machines was installed at Hillsboro, Oregon, R&D site back in 2024, making Intel the first company to install and pass acceptance testing of the second generation TWINSCAN EXE:5200B
The High NA EUV CPUs are already in volume production, with specific 18A layers now dual-qualified on High NA EUV in Oregon. The high-volume capacity of ASML's EXE machines is said to match the yields of the NXE platform.
Intel is basically now using High-NA in production on their most advanced product. It means that some of the product you buy today from Intel have been created with an High-NA machine. This is, of course, a very important milestone. This is the proof of the maturity of the tool. We’ve talked a lot about that in the last quarter. We are seeing that happening with all customer, and therefore expect to enter that discussion with all our customer on how exactly and when exactly the tool will be inserted in high volume manufacturing.
Christophe Fouquet, ASML President and CEO
According to Intel, High NA EUV is being applied to a subset of Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips that are codenamed Panther Lake. ASML calls it the first "high-volume logic product" on High NA EUV, which should set the stage for further adoption of the technology.
This milestone reflects the close technical collaboration between Intel and ASML and shows how High NA EUV can be integrated into advanced semiconductor manufacturing at scale. By qualifying the High NA EUV process option on select Intel 18A product layers, our existing fleet of tools are providing customers with increased output, while we develop future options to achieve leading-edge performance, density and manufacturing flexibility on upcoming nodes.
Naga Chandrasekaran, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Intel Foundry
The biggest takeaway is that Intel is the first to High NA EUV volume production, while TSMC is eyeing the use of high-NA EUV around 2029. The technology is vital to enable precise patterning for advanced chip manufacturing. The smaller and denser patterns will further accelerate AI and other emerging technologies, said Christophe Fouquet (ASML President and CEO).
Furthermore, the use of High NA EUV also paves the path forward for the use of the technology in future nodes based on customer requirements.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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