Intel is keeping all EUV High-NA scanners until Q2 2025

If we remember Intel’s 10nm era, when it lost all its advantages to TSMC and eventually succumbed to Taiwan, we will certainly take into account that a wrong decision in the giant company almost every time has disastrous consequences. He had a walk through hell
Intel This must not happen again, and for this reason Korea is now saying that the blue company is fully committed to ASML, reserving all EUV High-NA scanners for this this yearand that’s all first half of 2025!

Nobody wants to leave anything. Intel, with the White House in the background, bet on the latest version of ASML to get every possible advantage without worrying about the price. After an updated roadmap that leaves some doubt from 2027, the blues will get the best again this year and keep their foot off the accelerator until the next generation of scanners.

Intel is keeping all ASML EUV High-NA scanners until the first half of 2025

They can be counted on the fingers of one hand, literally speaking. At the moment, ASML is producing very few units of the new EXE:5000 with EUV High-NA and thus can only guarantee 5 units this 2024 (rumor has it that they may build a sixth unit).

A preliminary step to improve its production is the aforementioned expansion, which has kept Europe in suspense and which we have already discussed, as the company threatened to move to another continent if it was not allowed to increase its complexes, the fact that The Netherlands quickly financed most of the project to keep the company afloat.

After creating an expansionist project, the company hopes to create up to 6 scanners per year is coming, and starting in 2026 it will be able to gradually receive more units as work is completed and more EXE:5000s are prepared for release 380 million per unit.

TSMC, Samsung and SK Hynix won’t see it until the end of next year

The blow is stronger than expected, and while TSMC has said it is not interested in these scanners at the moment, as it is going to use dual EUV patterns and possibly quadruple if the predictions continue N2 and A14, The truth is, deep down, Wei knows perfectly well that the path is the path that ASML has marked for Intel.

So if they want to compete in the lithographic nodes, by 2026 they need to have enough scanners to produce a minimum of plates for their core partners every month. Read it Apple, NVIDIA and AMDnot forgetting Intel itself, although the blues want nodes one step behind, mature, high volume and cheap.

What about the two Korean giants? It seems like a bigger problem than expected, but it really isn’t.. Samsung and SK Hynix are polishing their new nodes
1 beta and they are not in a big hurry with these new scanners as theirs NAND Flash and DRAM
They should continue to scale other aspects first before making giant spending on ASML products.

Be that as it may, after seeing what Intel did that no one expected, given the composure of TSMC and the patience of Samsung and SK Hynix, it seems that everyone has come to terms with what is expected in these years, as the blues have been ahead, They bid and paid the price of gold for every EXE:5000 coming out of the ASML FAB.
The war will begin in 2026 when these scanners become available in large numbers and their improved versions hit the headlines, but by then Intel will already be using the Intel 10A by 2027, a step ahead of this previous push.