Intel moved first, beginning to use ASML’s High-NA EUV technology in high-volume manufacturing for Panther Lake mobile processors in July 2026. The machines use enhanced optics to print finer circuit patterns on silicon wafers—capability chipmakers need as AI designs demand smaller features and increasingly elaborate transistor structures.¹

Samsung and TSMC have now turned that early adoption into a broader industry commitment. Each plans to use ASML’s latest lithography systems, which can cost about $400 million apiece, joining Intel as customers for the Dutch group’s most advanced production tool.²

The timetable underscores both the promise and the difficulty of the shift. Samsung intends to deploy High-NA EUV for DRAM memory production from 2028. TSMC, whose customers include Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm, is targeting 2030 for its most advanced logic chips. TSMC says demand will be “driven primarily by the increasingly complex transistor architectures required for AI applications.”²

The companies are also aligning on a less glamorous but consequential change: replacing six-inch photomasks—the stencils that transfer circuit patterns—with 12-inch versions. ASML chief technology officer Marco Pieters said the larger format could eventually lift High-NA productivity by 40%, while lowering manufacturing costs.¹

For ASML, whose shares have already surged as investors wager on AI infrastructure, the customer commitments answer a central question over whether the expensive machines would win broad adoption. Barclays called the announcements a positive that “should provide more visibility on adoption,” and said ASML faces a significant decision on whether to expand EUV capacity beyond its existing plans.²

That confidence also sharpens the strategic divide in advanced chipmaking. ASML remains constrained from exporting most of its leading tools to China, leaving Chinese companies reliant on older equipment as they attempt to build a domestic alternative to an ecosystem that took decades to assemble.¹