The World's Most Important Machine

ASML EUV machines

ASML's EUV machines cost $400M and use a laser to hit tiny tin droplets 50,000 times per second. This creates extreme ultraviolet light, essential for printing the smallest microchip transistors.

• ☀️ The light source involves hitting molten tin droplets with a 20,000-watt laser, creating plasma hotter than the sun's surface.
• 🪞 Mirrors are the smoothest man-made objects, with bumps no thicker than a playing card if scaled to Earth-size.
• ⚛️ The machine can overlay chip layers with atomic precision, no more than 5 atoms off.
• 🚀 Parts move at accelerations over 20 Gs, more than five times that of a Formula 1 car.
• 💰 The latest high-NA machines cost over 350 million euros.

Two people in red suits stand before a massive, complex, futuristic machine with the text "This shouldn't exist."