Key Takeaways

• ASML has agreement from TSMC, Samsung and Intel to move to 12-inch photomasks, up from a 6-inch standard that has held for decades
• The change raises throughput on high-NA EUV systems by roughly 40 percent, which is what makes a $400 million machine pay for itself
• Larger masks remove reticle stitching, where a chip too big for one exposure field has to be printed in pieces and joined
• The timetable is long: a pilot mask line around 2031 and production readiness by 2033, with Samsung using high-NA for DRAM by 2028 and TSMC on advanced nodes from 2030