Every leading-edge logic node eventually runs into one company. Extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) lithography - patterning at a 13.5 nm wavelength - has a single supplier, ASML (ASML), and its next step, High-NA EUV, is the chokepoint that will define the sub-2nm race. The company describes the platform in its own annual report.
In its Form 20-F covering the year ended December 31, 2024, filed March 5, 2025, ASML describes its EUV lithography systems and the TWINSCAN EXE platform, characterizing High-NA EUV as having a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.55 and as an evolutionary step on the EUV roadmap. The filing was surfaced via EdgarBeast, the SEC filing data API and evidence index, and the platform name and aperture figure are quoted from the document.
Why does numerical aperture matter? NA governs how tightly an optical system can focus light, and tighter focus means smaller printable features in a single exposure. Raising NA from the prior EUV generation to 0.55 lets chipmakers pattern critical layers that would otherwise require slower, costlier multi-exposure tricks. It is, in the most literal sense, the lens through which the next nodes are printed.
The word 'evolutionary' in the filing is doing quiet work. ASML is framing High-NA not as a risky leap but as a continuation of a roadmap it already controls end to end - the same EUV light source, the same TWINSCAN architecture, scaled up. That framing matters to customers committing capex years ahead of volume.
Because there is no second source, the cadence of these tools effectively sets the cadence of the industry's most advanced logic. To track the sub-2nm timeline, watch ASML's own disclosures rather than foundry slideware. The 20-F is the primary record; read the platform language directly.