TSMC Deferring ASML's High-NA EUV Machines from Production Use Through 2029
TSMC has confirmed it will hold off on deploying ASML's most advanced high-NA EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography machines in production until after 2029. Each high-NA EUV machine carries a price tag upward of €350 million, and TSMC's decision is explicitly cost-motivated — the current economics of chip manufacturing do not justify deploying the machines at production scale within the current pricing environment.
Why It Matters
High-NA EUV is central to producing sub-2nm process nodes at scale — the nodes that will power the next generation of AI accelerators including NVIDIA's Blackwell successors and Apple Silicon beyond the A20 era. TSMC's 2029 deferral effectively extends the current lithography generation's dominance and pushes back the timeline for when AI chips manufactured on next-generation nodes reach the market at volume. Source: Bloomberg.