Lithography systems: ASML's bookings and stock plummet
Chip manufacturers such as Intel are ordering fewer exposure machines from ASML. The Dutch company is being punished for this.
The first High-NA-EUV system at Intel.
(Image: Intel)
Gloomy mood at the world's most important manufacturer of lithography systems for chip production: because ASML's customers have recently booked fewer machines, the stock market has been punishing the company since yesterday. Following the quarterly report, which was inadvertently published too early, the share price fell by up to 20 percent. Almost 60 billion euros of market capitalization was wiped out in the space of a day. The share has since stabilized. Current company value: 255 billion euros.
ASML received bookings worth 2.6 billion euros in the third quarter of 2024 – a traditionally low figure that ASML already had to nibble at a year ago. At that time, the entire chip market was doing badly due to the slump in demand. According to ASML, things are currently improving more slowly than expected. Added to this are the postponements at Intel Foundry.
In the short term, however, ASML is hardly dependent on the bookings in order to utilize its own production capacity. The company still has a backlog worth several dozen billion euros – so the lithography systems for the next few quarters have already been sold.
(Image:Â heise online)
ASML is growing
The quarter itself was positive. ASML turned over almost 7.5 billion euros and posted a net profit of 3.8 billion euros. Compared to the previous quarter, this corresponds to growth of 20 and 32 percent respectively. As ASML's sales are not traditionally seasonal, the comparison with the previous quarter is closer than with the previous year.
Meanwhile, the gross margin remained at the usual level of a good 50 percent, falling only minimally because ASML recently sold more older systems with deep ultraviolet (DUV) exposure technology. They expose wafers with a wavelength of 193 nanometers and are cheaper than the more complex machines with extreme ultraviolet exposure technology (EUV, 13.5 nm wavelength). DUV exposure is sufficient for older processes up to the 10 nm class and is still used in current production processes for the coarser layers.
Production capacity has recently increased again: in the third quarter, ASML delivered 106 new lithography systems and 10 refurbished systems. These included 11 EUV machines. In the previous quarter, the figure was 89 new and 11 refurbished systems, including eight EUV models.
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China remains the most important customer country
ASML earned a good 5.9 billion euros from the delivery of lithography systems – an additional 1.5 billion euros came from the maintenance of existing imagesetters at customers. China remains the largest customer country, with a 47 percent share of sales of lithography systems delivered.
(Image:Â ASML)
The USA – traditionally with a low single-digit percentage share – shot up to 21 percent. This is probably primarily due to new semiconductor plants in Arizona, where TSMC is currently ramping up production and Intel is also likely to have already installed its first lithography systems in the new buildings.
ASML expects sales of between 8.8 billion and 9.2 billion euros in the current fourth quarter. During this period, the company will book the first two EUV systems with a high numerical aperture (High-NA EUV), the price of which will rise to more than 400 million euros per unit. By comparison, previous EUV imaging systems cost 160-170 million. Intel Foundry should be the first customer.
(mma)
