The Chip-Printing Machine (High-NA EUV)

A room-sized machine that prints chip patterns with light bounced off mirrors.

How big?Fills a room. It prints lines a few thousand times thinner than a human hair.

Real: What it looks like.

Keys: arrows rotate · + / − zoom · 0 reset · 1–4 views · S signal · T tour · L labels · Space spin. Models are stylised and built from code: proportions are honest, details are simplified.

What it is

Chips are printed with light, like a photo. A laser hits tiny drops of molten tin twice: a soft pulse flattens each drop and a strong one turns it into plasma, which glows with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light 13.5 nanometres long.

That light is soaked up by air and by glass, so there are no lenses. Everything sits in a vacuum and the light bounces off mirrors made of up to 100 thin layers, each reflecting up to 70 percent. A mask on top carries the chip's pattern, and the mirrors shrink it onto the silicon wafer below.

The High-NA version gathers light from a wider angle, so it prints 8-nanometre lines instead of 13. To fit, it shrinks the pattern 4x one way and 8x the other, which halves the area it prints in one shot. Two wafer tables take turns: one is printed while the other is measured.

Why AI needs it

AI chips pack more than 300 billion transistors, and only light this short can print switches that small. The biggest AI chips are as large as one print, so on High-NA machines they get printed in two halves and joined, a step called stitching.

Every labeled part

1
Tin drops
Molten tin falls as a stream of tiny drops, up to 50,000 a second. Turn on Signal to watch them flash.
2
Drive laser
A powerful laser hits each drop twice: first to flatten it, then to blast it into glowing plasma.
3
Collector mirror
A big curved mirror gathers the light the plasma gives off and sends it into the machine.
4
Illuminator
More mirrors shape the light into an even beam before it reaches the mask.
5
Mask (reticle)
The chip's pattern, face down. It is itself a mirror: the light bounces off it, carrying the pattern.
6
Projection mirrors
Shrink the pattern onto the wafer: 4x across, 8x along. X-ray shows the mirrors inside.
7
Wafer table
Holds the silicon wafer and sweeps it under the light, field after field.
8
Second table
While one wafer is printed, the other is mapped by sensors, so no time is wasted. Explode the view to see them swap.
9
Vacuum chamber
Air would swallow the light, so the light path runs in a vacuum.

Try it · concept lab

Sharper, but half the window

Switch machines, then try printing one big AI chip.

One print

26 x 33 mm

Whole prints per wafer

~60

Finest lines

13 nm

Prints per big chip

—

Each rectangle is one print. Counts are whole prints only, from the wafer's geometry.

Big idea: High-NA prints finer lines by squeezing the pattern more in one direction, so each print covers half the area. Big AI chips get printed in two halves and stitched.

Swap it: other ways to do the same job

Standard EUV (0.33 NA)
Prints a full-size field and is cheaper, but its finest lines are about 13 nm, so the tiniest layers need several passes.
Older DUV (193 nm light)
Mature and cheaper, uses lenses in water, but its finest lines are about 38 nm, so small features take many passes.
Electron-beam writing
Draws the pattern directly with no mask, but one line at a time: far too slow to make chips in bulk. Used to make the masks.
Bigger masks (6 x 12 inch)
Would give High-NA a full-size field again and end stitching. Planned for the 2030s, as of 2026.

Talk about it

Q1
This machine uses mirrors instead of lenses because glass would swallow its light. What else can light not pass through?
Q2
Only one company in the world makes this machine. Is that a problem, or part of why it works so well?
Q3
The newest machine prints sharper lines but half as much at a time. When is slower-but-better worth it?

For grown-ups: there are no right answers here. Ask a question, then ask "why do you think that?" The reasons matter more than the answer.

Printable question sheet (PDF)