ASML: A Leaky First Machine, Molten Tin Lasers and the EUV Monopoly

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ASML was born in 1984 when Philips, under financial pressure, spun its lithography research into a joint venture with ASM International called Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography. Its first product, the PAS 2000, used oil pressure to move wafers and leaked hydraulic fluid, a serious flaw in clean rooms engineered to hold fewer than 10 particles per cubic meter. Without the money of vertically integrated rivals Nikon and Canon, ASML outsourced major components, including lenses from Carl Zeiss. Its modular PAS 5500 of 1991 could be serviced and upgraded on the fab floor, winning IBM and Micron Technology, which became its largest customer.

Working with TSMC in the early 2000s, ASML used immersion lithography, placing purified water between lens and wafer, to reach about 32 nanometers. It began studying extreme ultraviolet light in 1997, and in 2012, with R&D costing a billion dollars a year, sold a 23 percent stake to Intel, TSMC and Samsung, with Intel paying $4.1 billion for 15 percent. Production EUV machines finally shipped in 2018, giving ASML a 100 percent monopoly. From 2018 the US pushed to block EUV sales to China, and by 2023 and 2024 the Dutch government restricted EUV and some DUV exports.

• The EUV light source fires a laser twice at falling molten tin droplets, flattening then vaporizing them, 50,000 times a second.
• ASML spent over $2.5 billion in 2012 and 2013 to acquire Cymer, the American maker of that laser light source.
• A flagship machine weighs 180 tons and needs three Boeing 747s to ship, and High-NA EUV units cost about $370 million.
• The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights ruled ASML may reject applicants from US-sanctioned countries to comply with US export rules.
• Reuters reported in December 2025 that China had built a prototype EUV machine in Shenzhen, allegedly with former ASML engineers.