On September 3, SK Hynix announced that it has brought the industry's first mass-production High-NA EUV lithography machine into its M16 fab in Icheon, South Korea. The company highlighted that as competition in the global semiconductor market intensifies, it has built a strong foundation to accelerate advanced product development and secure a stable supply chain through close collaboration with partners.

The new system, ASML's TWINSCAN EXE:5200B, represents a leap forward from existing EUV technology (NA 0.33) with a numerical aperture of 0.55, offering 40% better optical performance. This improvement enables circuit patterns up to 1.7 times finer and chip density nearly 2.9 times higher, driving both performance and efficiency gains.

Since first applying EUV in its 1a DRAM back in 2021, SK Hynix has continued to expand its use across advanced memory manufacturing. The introduction of High-NA EUV is a critical step to meet future demand for extreme miniaturization and higher integration in semiconductors. With this equipment, SK Hynix plans to streamline existing EUV processes, accelerate next-generation memory R&D, and strengthen its competitiveness in both performance and cost.

Executives from both SK Hynix and ASML emphasized that High-NA EUV is a core technology to unlock the next era of semiconductors, especially in the fast-growing AI and next-generation computing markets. By securing this next-generation infrastructure, SK Hynix aims to reinforce its leadership in high-value memory and set the pace for AI-driven innovation.