Not Samsung, TSMC or NVIDIA, this company is behind AI advancements, smartphones with latest technology, know details

Bigger than the big tech companies in the world that are changing their games by incorporating artificial intelligence like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla and more, Netherlands-based multinational corporation Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography (ASML) is the biggest tech company in the world as it has been the powerful force behind AI revolution and advanced technology in the most modern smartphones. The world’s biggest smartphones and AI advancements are powered by microchips which in turn are developed by ASML’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography system.  

This system makes it possible for most modern phones and AI innovations to bring the tech revolution to the world. If it were not for this company, we would not have smartphones in our hands, or Nvidia's powerful GPUs, or even the advancements in AI like ChatGPT, Gemini and others.  

How it started? 

The company was founded in 1984 jointly by Philips and ASM International. ASML began small in the lithography area. More than a decade later in I997, it started shifting its focus towards EUV as it sought to expand beyond the traditional lithography machines, that worked with deep ultraviolet (DUV) light. In comparison, EUV has a much smaller wavelength of about 13.5nm, while the wavelength of the DUV is around 193nm. It specializes in the development and manufacturing of lithography systems used in the production of integrated circuits (chips). The lithography systems arw used in the semiconductor industry.  

How are ASML’s EUV more powerful 

Talking about NVIDIA H100 GPUs that power the latest large language models, they have a dependency on TSMC's 4-nanometer process, a hefty process, that puts in use around 15 EUV layers and an addition of at least 80 or even more layers. These layers are then supposed to fit within nanometers, which is not possible without ASML's technology. In comparison, one EUV machine can bring out around 100 wafers per hour, giving an output of roughly USD 150,000 worth of chips at the same time. What this means is that no other technique or process can surpass this quality and efficiency in chip powering technology.  

The powerful ASML machine needs 40 separate containers to be shipped across 700 plus companies across the world, and it needs four months to install a single machine. At present only three companies can function with this cutting-edge EUV system: TSMC, Samsung, and Intel.