An employee in the cleanroom works on an EUV system

SMT Magazine

ZEISS celebrates 30 years of EUV lithography optics

22 May 2025 6 min read

EUV lithography has long been considered visionary and technically unfeasible. Today, this technology makes powerful microchips for artificial intelligence and our smartphones possible. At ZEISS SMT, we are part of this development with ASML and we are off on a journey through time to revisit our most important milestones.

Just imagine what a world without powerful microchips would look like. A world in which your smartphone would no longer be able to gather information from anywhere in the world in fractions of a second and use artificial intelligence to process the data with reasonable accuracy. A world in which your laptop no longer has the computing power to handle complex tasks or stream your favorite film in high resolution images. Our everyday life would be completely different without the many marvels that are impossible without microchips.

I would now like to whisk you off into the world of EUV lithography (extreme ultraviolet light) or EUV for short. EUV is the key technology which makes it possible to manufacture extremely powerful microchips. It is at the heart of modern electronics and drives the innovations onward that are changing our world. Why? Because thanks to EUV lithography, microchips are becoming ever more minute, efficient and powerful. They form the basis for smartphones with extremely fast computing power as well as tech trends such as generative artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and smart health.

ASML and ZEISS: the EUV lithography enablers

But one thing at a time. Let's take a look at the beginning of today's tech trends and travel back in time to the early days of EUV history, back to the 1980s when Hiroo Kinoshita projected the first EUV images in Japan. In the 1990s, many different actors took their place on the stage and created the first milestones on the road to today's technology. One key company is the Dutch high-tech company ASML. Over the years, ASML has grown from a niche player on the European market to become a global market leader in the field of semiconductor technology and, up to the present time, the manufacturer of EUV lithography machines. Working closely with ZEISS and many other partners in Europe, ASML transformed EUV lithography into a high-volume manufacturing tool that enabled big changes in our digital life and work. At ZEISS, we are very proud to play an important part in this extensively networked and highly innovative ecosystem, and to share our story as part of EUV's story. Our optical systems, which can be described as ultra-precise mirrors with mechatronic systems, form the key component of the EUV systems of our strategic partner ASML.

ZEISS optics are the key component of ASML's EUV systems.

Christoph Hensche President Semiconductor Manufacturing Optics

With pioneering spirit and perseverance to success

But the development of EUV was not a foregone conclusion. The road from the idea to the final product was long and bumpy. 30 years ago, EUV lithography was considered to be too visionary and technically unfeasible. The strategic and economic ramifications for the future market position in a rapidly changing semiconductor market were just as uncertain. The challenges were therefore extremely daunting. But with pioneering spirit, unflagging commitment and teamwork, the developers succeeded in bringing ultra-complex EUV lithography to market-readiness, also thanks to the patience of our customers.

The beginnings of EUV lithography at ZEISS SMT

I now want to take you further into the history of EUV, and to have a look at the most important milestones of 30 years of EUV lithography. Our journey began more than 30 years ago on a wet November day in 1995, when a workshop at ZEISS laid an important foundation stone for optical EUV lithography. At this time, less than one percent of the world's population had access to the Internet. Representatives of chip manufacturers and research institutes gathered at the workshop in Oberkochen, a small village in the Ostalb region of Germany, with the intention of shaping the future of optical lithography. Everyone in the room supported the vision of working with extreme ultra-violet light with a wavelength of 13.5 nanometers. But how this could be achieved was far from clear at that time. It became less of an enigma in 1999 when the "micro exposure tool" came on the scene. These were the first projection optics for small illumination fields and formed the basis for larger and more complex systems. They were then followed in 2006 and 2010 by the first full field EUV optics and the prototype for the ZEISS EUV optics, both essential developments in the preparation of EUV lithography for series production.

On the ZEISS premises, many SMT employees bid farewell to the first delivery of the EUV and a group photo is taken.

The first EUV optics as standard equipment

The big moment came in 2012, when ZEISS formally delivered the first standard EUV optics to ASML. A historic moment that attested to our collaboration with ASML on the road to the successful utilization of EUV lithography in industry. Things now started to happen in rapid succession: In 2013, ASML launched the TWINSCAN NXE:3300 on the market; the first machine using EUV lithography in series production. 2017 saw the introduction of the ZEISS AIMS EUV, an important tool for inspecting EUV masks for defects under the same lighting conditions as in wafer scanners.

One hand holds a microchip made with EUV technology between its fingers

The breakthrough in the consumer goods industry

At last, the long period of waiting came to an end in 2018 when the first smartphones with EUV microchips appeared on the market. The hard work of many people had now enabled microchips manufactured using EUV lithography to end up in your hands. This was a decisive step for the widespread use of EUV technology in the consumer goods industry. This was then also recognized in 2020 by the award of the Deutscher Zukunftspreis, the Federal President’s Award for Technology and Innovation to the research team consisting of Dr. Peter Kürz (ZEISS), Dr. Michael Kösters (TRUMPF) and Sergiy Yulin (Fraunhofer IOF). German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented the award to the team in a formal ceremony. Four years later, Dr. Peter Kürz and Dr. Michael Kösters received the Werner von Siemens Ring, one of Germany's highest awards in the fields of science and technology, for the practical application of EUV technology in industry and other achievements.

Up to the present time, we have delivered more than 300 sets of EUV optics to ASML. You can see now that in the last 30 years EUV lithography has evolved from a bold idea to a ground-breaking standard for the semiconductor industry. And the innovation on the technology still continues to meet the demands of the chipindustry.

A world without EUV lithography

And now, at the end of our journey, have you been able to imagine a world without powerful microchips? A world without revolutionary EUV lithography? A world without companies such as ASML, ZEISS and the many important partners and suppliers in the overall ecosystem? Don't worry. We will also be working together in the future to ensure that microchips will keep on improving and that new innovations can emerge. We will achieve this with new key technologies such as High NA-EUV lithography.