[News] TSMC to Hold First 2025 Earnings Call, With ASML Executives Reportedly Planning Taiwan Visit

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According to a report from MoneyDJ, TSMC is scheduled to hold its first earnings call of 2025 on January 16. Industry sources indicate that Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML, along with other executives from the company, might visit Taiwan again to meet with TSMC and key suppliers. The discussions, as noted by industry sources, will center on the timeline for introducing High-NA EUV lithography machines and the potential policy direction under the new U.S. administration.

As highlighted in the report, ASML, the leading semiconductor lithography equipment manufacturer, conducts annual visits to its clients in Asia. In January 2024, just before TSMC’s earnings call, Christophe Fouquet, who was not yet officially CEO at the time, visited Taiwan with several high-ranking executives. During this visit, they engaged in discussions with TSMC Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei and various departmental heads.

TSMC began incorporating EUV equipment with its 7nm process and later adopted it across its 5nm and 3nm nodes, according to the report. In 2024, TSMC reportedly obtained its first High-NA EUV machine for trial use. Industry sources suggest that TSMC could procure a small number of High-NA EUV machines as early as its A14P process and adopt them on a larger scale for the A10 process, maintaining its position as ASML’s largest customer, as the report notes.

According to ASML‘s press release cited in the report, the company shipped the first modules of its High-NA EUV lithography system to Intel in December 2023. This equipment can expose over 185 wafers per hour and supports the mass production of sub-2nm logic chips as well as memory chips with similar transistor densities. The report also mentions that each machine reportedly costs over EUR 300 million.

The MoneyDJ report further indicates that Samsung plans to acquire its first High-NA EUV unit in 2025. However, according to a report from Business Korea, Samsung initially considered purchasing more than three units—EXE:5200, EXE:5400, and EXE:5600—over the next decade. It has since decided to proceed with introducing only the EXE:5200.

During its earnings call for the third quarter of 2024, ASML projected group sales of EUR 30–35 billion in 2025, with China contributing approximately 20% of this figure—a significant decline from 50% in 2024.

Meanwhile, as noted by the report, in a prior interview with the Dutch newspaper NRC, ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet remarked that due to U.S. restrictions on accessing the most advanced EUV lithography equipment, China’s chip manufacturing technology lags approximately 10–15 years behind.

Read more

• [News] Samsung vs. SK hynix: South Korean Semiconductor Giants’ Contrasting EUV Strategies
• [News] AI Chip Demand Spurs TSMC’s High-NA EUV Deployment

(Photo credit: ASML)