EUV Lithography (13.5nm)
13.5nm-wavelength patterning — the technology gate to sub-7nm chips
Extreme ultraviolet lithography uses 13.5nm-wavelength light generated by vaporizing tin droplets with a high-power CO2 laser, focused by ultra-flat reflective optics in vacuum. It is the enabling technology for every logic node below ~7nm and for advanced DRAM, and no viable alternative exists at scale. Because only ASML can build EUV scanners, EUV is simultaneously a technology node and the hardest chokepoint in the AI hardware stack; High-NA EUV (0.55 numerical aperture) extends the roadmap toward the angstrom era in 2025-2026.
Wavelength
13.5 nm
Light source
Laser-produced tin plasma (Cymer)
Nodes enabled
N7/N5/N3/N2 and advanced DRAM
High-NA aperture
0.55 NA
How it fits the stack
EUV Lithography (13.5nm) with what it depends on (above) and what it feeds (below). The figure renders as a crawlable diagram and upgrades to an interactive 3D graph as it scrolls into view.
EUV Lithography (13.5nm) in the AI stack. EUV Lithography (13.5nm) with its immediate upstream dependencies (top) and downstream dependents (bottom) in the AI value chain. Hover a node in 3D, or read the full relationships below.
Graph data (text) — 12 entities, 11 relationships
- EUV Lithography (13.5nm) —supplies→ AGC / Tosoh (EUV blanks & sputtering targets)
- EUV Lithography (13.5nm) —manufactures→ ASML Holding
- EUV Lithography (13.5nm) —supplies→ Carl Zeiss SMT
- EUV Lithography (13.5nm) —supplies→ Cymer (ASML light source)
- EUV Lithography (13.5nm) —supplies→ HOYA (EUV Mask Blanks)
- EUV Lithography (13.5nm) —supplies→ Lasertec
- EUV Lithography (13.5nm) —supplies→ Neon Gas
- High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) —depends on→ EUV Lithography (13.5nm)
- Intel Foundry —uses→ EUV Lithography (13.5nm)
- Samsung Foundry —uses→ EUV Lithography (13.5nm)
- TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) —uses→ EUV Lithography (13.5nm)
Depends on ↑ · 8
Feeds ↓ · 4
Context — capital, rivals, policy · · 1