ASML’s EUV Machines Are Nearly Sold Out Through 2027. Can It Scale High-NA?

ASML faces two related tasks: build enough EUV lithography systems to serve customers already booking future capacity, and help those customers turn its newer High-NA systems into an economical production process. Strong demand makes expansion attractive, but orders alone cannot establish how quickly machines will be built—or how widely High-NA will be adopted.1244

Expanding EUV output without treating targets as deliveries

ASML’s existing EUV systems are nearly, not completely, sold out for 2027. After meeting the company’s chief financial officer, JPMorgan analysts reported that ASML was targeting roughly 30% production growth in 2028 and examining ways to make more than 110 EUV tools that year. Those figures describe capacity ambitions, not confirmed deliveries.1 ASML has also broken ground on a new plant in Eindhoven as customers commit to its next generation of High-NA machines, which cost roughly $400 million each.2

The distinction matters because increasing factory capacity and getting a complex tool onto a customer’s production floor are separate steps. The reported expansion addresses the supply side; High-NA adoption depends on what chipmakers can achieve with the machines once installed.1244

Intel leads, but High-NA adoption is still uneven

Intel and ASML say High-NA is already used in high-volume manufacturing on selected layers of a subset of Intel processors. They also report more than one million wafers processed across tool certification and testing, research and development, and volume production. That cumulative figure demonstrates operating experience; it does not mean one million commercially saleable wafers came from High-NA production.1451

Other customers are at different stages. Reported plans place Samsung’s High-NA use in DRAM mass production by 2028 and TSMC’s advanced-chip use from 2030. Reuters reported that, as of September 2026, neither Samsung nor TSMC was using the machines for high-volume work, while Intel was.22644 These schedules point to a gradual transition by customer and application, not an immediate replacement of existing EUV tools.

The economic test for a $400 million machine

High-NA’s attraction is that finer features can be printed in a single exposure. A reported comparison says ASML’s EXE:5200B can print features about 1.7 times smaller than its NXE platform can in one exposure, potentially replacing multiple conventional-EUV patterning steps for some designs.19 That is a resolution comparison—not a promise that entire chips will be 1.7 times smaller or that a factory will produce them 1.7 times faster.

For a chipmaker, the question is whether saved process steps and workable throughput, availability and yield justify the higher tool price. The available evidence does not establish that every prospective customer has cleared that economic threshold. ASML’s work with chipmakers on larger masks underscores that practical production choices are still being developed alongside the machines themselves.244

Why a Dutch expansion does not mean more European fabs

ASML executive vice president Frank Heemskerk said the company was currently selling no chipmaking machines in Europe, attributing the gap to insufficient investment and new fab construction.4 Reports on the second quarter of 2026 describe Europe’s share of net system sales as zero, with South Korea and Taiwan the leading markets.11 Net system sales are a revenue measure; they should not be recast as an exact percentage of machine-unit deliveries. Nor does the statement mean Europe has no existing fabs or that ASML has no other business there.

That distinction exposes a policy challenge. Building more lithography equipment in Eindhoven expands Europe’s equipment industry, but it does not itself add European wafer-production capacity. The gap between where ASML makes tools and where customers invest in fabs complicates the European Chips Act’s ambition to grow the bloc’s share of global chip production.2450

Why the shares could fall despite strong demand

Demand and the share price need not move together. On Thursday, September 24, one market report showed ASML’s U.S.-listed shares down about 1.8% to $1,713.41 at 10:45 a.m. ET; historical closing data show $1,722.50, down 1.27%, that day. The first number was an intraday snapshot, not the closing move.2329

The reported decline occurred amid a wider bond-yield-driven pullback in semiconductor shares.18 GuruFocus also compared the intraday price with its roughly $1,260 GF Value estimate, a model-based benchmark rather than a proven intrinsic value.23 Strong bookings can coexist with investor concern about valuation and execution. The cited market figures do not show that a High-NA performance failure or an ASML delivery delay caused that day’s decline.