A senior executive at ASML Holding NV has stated that the company has ambitious plans to expand its chip manufacturing equipment product line with multiple new offerings, aiming to capture a larger share of the rapidly growing artificial intelligence chip market.

Following over a decade of research and development, ASML Holding NV is the only company globally capable of producing Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. These machines are essential for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Intel to produce the world's most advanced AI chips. ASML Holding NV has invested billions of dollars in developing its EUV systems. Its next-generation product is now nearing mass production, while a third-generation potential product is also under development.

The Dutch company is seeking to expand beyond its EUV business foundation by planning to enter the advanced packaging equipment market. This type of equipment is used to bond and interconnect multiple specialized chips, serving as a key building block for AI chips and their accompanying high-end memory. According to these plans, ASML Holding NV will integrate artificial intelligence into both new and existing business operations.

"We are not just looking at the next five years, but looking ahead 10, even 15 years," ASML Holding NV's Chief Technology Officer, Marco Pieters, stated. "We need to assess the potential direction of the industry and determine what technological support is needed in areas like packaging and bonding."

The EUV equipment produced by ASML Holding NV is used in the lithography process, which involves using light to print intricate circuit patterns onto silicon wafers to manufacture chips. The company also plans to investigate whether it can break through the current upper limit for chip printing size—currently about the size of a postage stamp—a constraint that limits chip speed.

In October of last year, the company promoted Pieters to the role of Chief Technology Officer, succeeding Martin van den Brink, who served in the technology department for nearly 40 years. ASML Holding NV also announced a restructuring of its technology business in January of this year, placing engineering roles above management positions.

Investors have already factored ASML Holding NV's dominance in the EUV sector into its share price and hold high expectations for Pieters and CEO Christophe Fouquet, who took office in 2024. The company's stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of approximately 40, compared to around 22 for Nvidia.

The company, with a market capitalization of $560 billion, has seen its share price increase by more than 30% this year.

ASML Holding NV is accelerating the development of chip packaging equipment and has begun developing chip manufacturing tools that could be used to produce a new generation of high-end AI processors.

"We are indeed researching this area—to what extent we can participate and what additional value we can bring to this business," Pieters said.

Pieters, who has a background in software development at ASML Holding NV, noted that as the company's equipment speeds continue to increase, engineers will utilize artificial intelligence to optimize equipment control software and accelerate inspection processes during chip production.

Until a few years ago, chip designers like Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices primarily created essentially flat, planar chips, akin to single-story houses. Today's chips are increasingly resembling multi-layered skyscrapers, interconnected via nanoscale connections.

Constrained by the postage stamp-sized lithography area, designers can enhance chip processing speed by using stacking or lateral splicing methods to meet the complex computational demands required for building large AI models and running chatbots like ChatGPT.

The precision and complexity required to build these "skyscraper-style" chips are transforming the once low-margin, high-volume packaging business into a more profitable manufacturing step for companies like ASML Holding NV. TSMC already uses advanced packaging technology to produce Nvidia's most advanced AI chips.

"But we also see that more and more advanced packaging technologies are extending into the front-end chip manufacturing processes," Pieters said, referring to trends at companies like TSMC. "Precision is becoming increasingly important."

After studying the plans of chip manufacturers, including memory chip makers like SK Hynix, Pieters believes there is a clear market need for more equipment to support the production of products like stacked chips.

Last year, ASML Holding NV introduced a scanning tool called the XT:260, specifically designed for manufacturing high-end memory chips for AI and AI processors. Pieters mentioned that the company's engineers are "still exploring more equipment solutions."

"One of my current tasks is to plan the product portfolio in this direction," he said.

The size of AI chips has increased significantly, and ASML Holding NV is developing more scanning systems and lithography equipment to enable the manufacturing of larger chips.

Pieters stated that the core expertise in optical technology and wafer handling underlying the scanning tools will provide ASML Holding NV with a competitive advantage in developing next-generation equipment.

"It will coexist for a long time with the business we have been conducting for the past 40 years," he said.