US$ 2.5 billion Next-generation EUV lithography machine: The power consumption soars to 2 million watts

US$ 2.5 billion Next-generation EUV lithography machine: The power consumption soars to 2 million watts.

As the semiconductor process enters within 7nm, EUV lithography machine is an indispensable key equipment. Only ASML can produce it in the world.

Now the EUV lithography machine with NA 0.33 aperture sells for as high as 150 million US dollars, or about 1 billion units. But the next generation will be more expensive.

The key indicator for the lithography machine to manufacture chips is the lithography resolution.

The larger the NA numerical aperture of the lens, the better.

Now the EUV lithography machine with NA 0.33 aperture can mass-produce 3nm and 2nm processes, and then it needs NA 0.55 aperture.

The next-generation lithography machine, also known as High NA EUV, is required to manufacture processes below 2nm.

High NA EUV is expected to start producing prototypes to customers next year.

This time, Intel is the first to start, and snapped up the first batch of High NA EUV lithography machines.

It is said that the unit price exceeds 340 million US dollars, or about 2.5 billion.

But the final price of High NA EUV is still uncertain, and it may reach 400 million US dollars in the future.

The High NA EUV lithography machine is not only expensive, but also the cost of use is getting higher and higher, because the power consumption will continue to rise.

ASML recently confirmed that the High NA EUV lithography machine consumes an additional 0.5WM power consumption, plus the current 1.5MW power consumption.

The total power consumption of the next-generation lithography machine will reach 2MW, that is, 2 million watts.

If it runs 24 hours a day, the next-generation lithography machine will consume 48,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity every day.

This cost is very high for chip manufacturing companies, and it is an absolute power tiger.