Chipmaker TSMC is expected to receive the first shipment of High Numerical Aperture NA Extreme Ultraviolet (High NA EUV) lithography machines from ASML before the end of the year.

According to a report from Nikkei Asia, the equipment will be installed at TSMC’s R&D center near its headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

It is unclear how many of the machines TSMC has bought from ASML, but each High NA unit costs approximately $370 million a piece.

Netherlands-based ASML is the sole global supplier of EUV photolithography machines that are needed to make the most advanced 3nm and 5nm chips. High NA EUV machines – the most advanced lithography tools available – require less light per exposure than traditional EUV machines, reducing the time required to print each layer and therefore increasing wafer output.

ASML has capacity to produce around five or six units of high-NA EUV equipment each year. It was previously believed that Intel had secured the company’s entire 2024 stock of High NA EUV tools, with assembly of its first Oregon-housed machine completed in mid-April. However, ASML has since confirmed to Nikkei Asia that Intel received two High NA machines with a third “in the process of being shipped to a second major customer at this moment.”

In May 2024 it was reported that ASML had installed a kill switch into an extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machine it has sold to TSMC, giving it the ability to remotely disable the machine should a Chinese invasion of Taiwan occur.

Earlier this month ASML’s CEO Christophe Fouquet warned that recovery in the semiconductor market for products beyond AI is likely to be “more gradual than previously expected,” after the company posted a disappointing set of Q3 2024 financial results.