After years of negotiations with EUV equipment manufacturer ASML, Samsung finally shipped in its first High-NA EUV equipment to its Hwaseong Campus earlier this month, reports from Korea confirmed.
Locked in a race with TSMC and Intel, Samsung is now continuing to accelerate its 2nm chip manufacturing operations. Late last year, when Jinman Han was appointed the new head of the Samsung foundry division, engineers were instructed to prioritize the 2nm-based chip production capacity.
High-NA EUV (High Numerical Aperture Extreme Ultraviolet) equipment is necessary for making next-generation 2nm (and lower) chips. The TWINSCAN EXE:5000 is the latest cutting-edge High-NA EUV machine from Dutch equipment manufacturer ASML, and as you may have heard before, ASML is the only EUV equipment supplier in the world.
Every chip maker who wants access to this cutting-edge equipment goes to ASML. Samsung began negotiations with ASML as early as 2022. However, in December 2023, Intel acquired the very first TWINSCAN EXE:5000 High-NA EUV machine from ASML.
Industry watchers cited by Financial News say that Samsung introduced the TWINSCAN EXE:5000 to its Hwaseong Campus earlier this month. This highly sophisticated machinery is very expensive, and to acquire it, Samsung had to pay roughly 500 billion won ($344 million).
The EXE:5000 will be crucial for Samsung's 2nm chip manufacturing, but the company has to catch up with rival TSMC. The latter chip maker achieved a 60% yield in its 2nm production test run last year.