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Consortium Targets 12-Inch Photomasks, Full Production by 2033

9/9/2026

11 2 Full Breakdown

Summary

Story summary

ASML, TSMC, Samsung and Intel announced a plan to adopt 12-inch photomasks.
The consortium targets a pilot line by 2031 and full production by 2033.
ASML expects larger masks to raise High-NA EUV productivity by about 40 %.
Each High-NA EUV scanner costs roughly $400 million, about twice the price of conventional EUV tools.
Larger 12-inch masks will cut stitching, lower chipmaking costs and increase fab throughput.

History

Historical Context

After Hiroo Kinoshita’s 1986 EUV demonstration and ASML’s 2001 acquisition of SVG, the technology progressed from the 2006 prototype that printed one wafer in 23 hours to Intel’s D1X fab deploying EUV scanners in the 2010s, confirming commercial scale. The new 2024 consortium of Intel, TSMC, Samsung and ASML now targets 12-inch masks to cut costs and speed advanced-node rollout.

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Story summary

ASML, TSMC, Samsung and Intel announced a plan to adopt 12-inch photomasks.
The consortium targets a pilot line by 2031 and full production by 2033.
ASML expects larger masks to raise High-NA EUV productivity by about 40 %.
Each High-NA EUV scanner costs roughly $400 million, about twice the price of conventional EUV tools.
Larger 12-inch masks will cut stitching, lower chipmaking costs and increase fab throughput.

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