Intel turns to next-generation ASML tool to help make its laptop chips

By Max A. Cherney

SAN FRANCISCO, July 14 (Reuters) - Intel has decided to use a high-end machine from ASML to manufacture some of its flagship Panther Lake laptop chips, ASML said on Tuesday, a move that will help the chipmaker learn to use the tool more effectively.

Following experiments that began in 2024, Intel has begun to use ASML's next-generation high numerical aperture (High NA) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machines, which print circuit patterns on to microchips, to help produce a portion of its Panther Lake processors, ASML said.

The industry has debated at what point it makes economic sense to begin deploying the High NA tools, which likely will be needed by chipmakers in the future as they continue to shrink the atomic-sized features that make up chips.

The High NA equipment costs around $400 million, or twice as much as the standard EUV machine. The tool is also technically challenging to introduce into production processes.

Intel is using the High NA tool for specific layers of the chip, which will help Intel and ASML collect data and optimize the equipment.

Intel declined to comment on the announcement.

The company uses its 18A manufacturing process to fabricate the Panther Lake chips and already uses ASML's standard EUV lithography machines to do so. Lithography is the process of using light to draw the complex patterns that make up the circuits on a chip.

Intel received the first High NA tool in 2024 at its Hillsboro, Oregon research and development site where the company develops its new manufacturing techniques and technologies.

(Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Sonali Paul)