TSMC's A14/A16 process abandons use of High NA EUV lithography technology
At TSMC's North American Technology Symposium, TSMC said it does not need to use High NA (high numerical aperture) EUV lithography to manufacture chips for its A14 (1.4nm) process.
TSMC introduced the A14 process at the symposium and said it expects to enter production in 2028. Previously, TSMC had said that the A16 process would be available by the end of 2026 and would also not require the use of High NA EUV lithography equipment.
Kevin Zhang, TSMC's senior vice president of business development, was quoted as saying, “We don't need to use High NA to go from 2nm to A14, but we can continue to maintain a similar complexity of process steps.”
This is in stark contrast to Intel, which has been aggressively adopting High NA in an effort to catch up with semiconductor foundry market leaders TSMC and Samsung. Intel was the first company to acquire an ASML High NA EUV lithography machine and plans to start producing chips with High NA EUV lithography in the Intel 18A process in 2025.