ASML and Zeiss outline Hyper NA chipmaking tool that could be ready in a decade

ASML and its optics partner Carl Zeiss have outlined a chipmaking machine that could be ready in about 10 years and print features as small as 5 nanometers, Reuters reported from Amsterdam on October 8. The proposed Hyper NA tool could extend the industry's ability to shrink circuitry, but ASML has not committed to producing it.

The proposal appears in a peer-reviewed paper in the October issue of the Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials and Metrology, according to Reuters. ASML has begun developing the technology, the report says. The suggested decade-long horizon is a possibility, rather than an announced delivery schedule.

What Hyper NA would change

Reuters reports that the proposed tool could print features more than a third smaller than those possible with ASML's current High NA extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, machine. Smaller features remain important for chip speed and power consumption even as manufacturers develop three-dimensional designs, with lithography limiting how small circuitry can become.

The engineers argue that much of the existing technology could carry over. Reuters quotes the paper as saying ASML's current light source “can be reused as is”. The authors also say Zeiss can already make mirrors precise enough for Hyper NA, and that the machine would be only slightly larger than existing High NA tools, which Reuters describes as double-decker-bus-sized.

Why numerical aperture matters

Belgian research organisation imec explains that conventional EUV tools with a numerical aperture of 0.33 and High NA tools with an aperture of 0.55 both use light with a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers. Numerical aperture affects how much diffracted light contributes to the image. Increasing it improves resolution without changing that wavelength.

In its technical review, imec describes a 2024 demonstration of single-exposure lines and spaces in resist at a 16-nanometer pitch, corresponding to an 8-nanometer critical dimension. That was a High NA result, not a demonstration of Hyper NA. Pitch, individual feature dimensions and chip-generation names are different measures and should not be treated as interchangeable.

Imec also distinguishes resolving a pattern from manufacturing useful structures reliably. Resist, underlying materials and etching affect final dimensions and wafer yield. Its review says the limit for yielding industry-relevant structures is larger than 16-nanometer pitch, and identifies depth of focus, random patterning defects and stitching as continuing High NA research challenges.

What earlier High NA experiments established

On September 22, 2025, imec announced single-exposure High NA line structures at 20-nanometer pitch with 13-nanometer tip-to-tip dimensions. Researchers optimised the resist, underlying material and exposure settings together. The results concerned the preceding technology generation and provide experimental context for the manufacturing work involved.

The same announcement reported ruthenium lines at 20- and 18-nanometer pitch made using direct metal etching. Imec reported 100% electrical test yield for the 20-nanometer-pitch structures. That result applied to those test structures; it did not establish whole-chip production yield or any Hyper NA performance.

Fewer patterning steps are another potential benefit of higher resolution. Imec's technical review gives critical-metal-layer examples for A14 and A10 technologies requiring three or four masks with 0.33-NA EUV, compared with one exposure using 0.55-NA High NA.

In the September 2025 announcement, Steven Scheer, then imec's senior vice president for compute system scaling, said single-print High NA “reduces processing steps compared to multi-patterning”. He linked that reduction to lower fabrication costs and environmental impact, and improved yield. His comments concerned the earlier experiments, not the new Hyper NA proposal.

Imec conducts this work in partnership with ASML, including through their joint High NA laboratory, and identified partial support from the EU's NanoIC pilot line. Its experiments provide separately originated technical evidence, but do not constitute an unaffiliated endorsement or a test of Hyper NA.

Chipmakers are still adopting High NA

Reuters describes ASML as the sole supplier of EUV lithography tools used to print tiny circuitry in AI chips. It reports that Intel has begun using High NA in production, while Samsung and SK Hynix said in September they would follow in 2028 and TSMC in 2030. Those schedules concern High NA, not orders for its proposed successor.

Beyond Hyper NA, the paper's authors expect tools would probably need a shorter wavelength of light, according to Reuters, which describes that prospect as still an academic research topic. For Hyper NA itself, the reported proposal leaves production commitment and commercial timing unresolved; the account establishes neither manufacturing yield nor throughput for the future machine.