ASML (ASML) plans to expand its chipmaking equipment portfolio with new products to capture more of the growing market for AI chips, Reuters reported, citing the company’s Chief Technology Officer Marco Pieters.
ASML is the only company that makes extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, machines that are vital for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) and Intel (INTC) to produce advanced AI chips. The Dutch company has a next-generation product nearing production and is researching a third potential generation, the report added.
The company intends to expand into the market to manufacture equipment that can help glue and connect multiple specialized chips, called advanced packaging. It is a vital building block for AI chips and the advanced memory that drives them. As part of these efforts, ASML will deploy AI in its forthcoming businesses and legacy efforts, according to the report.
“We look, not just for the next five years, we look at the next 10, maybe 15 years,” said Pieters to the news outlet. “(We look at) what are potential directions the industry could take, and what would it require in terms of packaging, bonding, etc.?”
The EUV machines are used for lithography — a process of using light to print complex patterns on silicon wafers to make chips. ASML plans to determine if it can expand the maximum size of chips it can print beyond what it currently does — around the size of a postage stamp — which limits its speed, the report noted.
The company is advancing plans to build equipment that helps in packaging chips and is starting to develop chipmaking tools that can help build newer generations of advanced AI processors, the report added.
Pieters — who was promoted to CTO in October 2025 and replaced Martin van den Brink, who was the head of the technology unit for about 40 years — said that ASML’s tools get faster, its engineers will be able to use AI to speed up its machines’ control software and the tools’ inspection of chips as they are constructed, the report noted.
The complexity and accuracy needed to develop skyscraper-style chips has made packaging, once a low-margin volume business, a more lucrative part of manufacturing for companies such as ASML. TSM has used an advanced packaging technology to build the most advanced Nvidia (NVDA) AI chips, the report added.
“But we also see more of that advanced packaging is coming to the front end,” said Pieters, referring to what TSM and others are doing. “Accuracy is becoming more and more important.”
When Pieters examined the chip maker’s plans, including memory makers like SK hynix (HXSC.F), it was clear there would be requirements for additional machines to help companies make things such as chips stacked on top of one another, according to the report.
In 2025, ASML unveiled a scanning tool named XT:260 built specifically to help produce advanced memory chips used for AI and the AI processors themselves. Pieters noted that the company’s engineers are exploring additional machines.
One of the things I’m doing is also looking at what could be a product portfolio in that direction,” said Pieters.
AI chips have increased in size, and ASML is evaluating additional scanner systems and lithography tools to make chips even larger.
Pieters noted that because the scanning equipment uses expertise like optics and know-how like the intricate ways a tool handles silicon wafers, it will give ASML an edge in making future machines.