ZEISS Optics Power ASML's EUV Machines | Generated by AI
Question: What does ZEISS do, especially as ASML’s key partner?
Answer:
ZEISS (officially Carl Zeiss AG, usually just called ZEISS) is a German optics and optoelectronics company founded in 1846. Today it is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-precision optical systems and components.
In the semiconductor industry — and specifically in its partnership with ASML — ZEISS plays a critical role:
- ZEISS develops and manufactures the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and deep ultraviolet (DUV) optics (mirrors and lens elements)** that are at the heart of ASML’s lithography machines.
- ASML’s EUV machines (the most advanced chip-making tools in the world, used by TSMC, Intel, Samsung, etc.) would not exist without ZEISS’s mirrors. These are the largest and most precise optical mirrors ever made (aspheric, with surface accuracy better than 100 picometers).
- ZEISS has a 50+ year partnership with ASML. ZEISS owns ~24.9% of ASML’s subsidiary that handles EUV development, and the two companies co-invest billions in EUV technology.
- Besides lithography optics, ZEISS’s broader business includes:
- Semiconductor manufacturing technology (photomask metrology, repair, etc.)
- Medical technology (surgical microscopes, ophthalmology devices)
- Industrial quality & research (microscopes, coordinate measuring machines)
- Consumer optics (camera lenses for Sony, Nokia/Sony smartphones, eyeglass lenses, planetarium projectors, etc.)
In short: ZEISS is the indispensable optics partner that makes ASML’s world-leading lithography machines possible.
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