ASML EUV in China? The rumour is ridiculed but it reveals a tougher reality on the ground

For anyone closely watching the semiconductor industry, the recent saga around ASML’s denial of possible EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography shipments to China, in an apparent response to US concern, may sound almost absurd at first.
The machine at the centre of the discussion is not a laptop-sized piece of equipment that can be easily packed into a shipping carton. ASML’s EUV lithography systems weigh about 180 tonnes, contain a vast number of precision components, are shipped to customers in the bellies of huge cargo planes, and require extensive installation, calibration and service support.
That is why US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick’s reported concern that such technology may have reached China was met with scepticism, and even ridicule, by some industry observers.
ASML has categorically denied that it shipped any EUV system, or components specifically designed for one, to China. But the episode points to a more serious question for China’s chip industry: if EUV remains out of reach, and access to the most advanced DUV (deep ultraviolet) lithography tools is also tightening, how far can domestic chipmakers progress by relying on older equipment and alternative approaches?
The answer matters because lithography is one of the biggest bottlenecks to China’s semiconductor ambitions. Without ASML’s most advanced tools, Chinese foundries are trying to push DUV multi-patterning further, the country’s tool makers are trying to build domestic lithography systems, while others are exploring new approaches such as advanced packaging, system-level optimisation and Huawei Technologies’ Tau Law.
What is the difference between DUV and EUV?
DUV and EUV refer to different wavelengths of light used in lithography.
DUV typically refers to tools using Krypton Fluoride (KrF) or Argon Fluoride (ArF) light sources, with wavelengths of 248nm and 193nm, respectively. The most advanced DUV machines are ArF immersion systems, which place a liquid medium between the lens and the wafer to increase resolution. These tools can still be used for advanced chips, especially when combined with multi-patterning, but they require more process steps and more precise control.
EUV uses a much shorter wavelength of 13.5 nanometres. This allows chipmakers to print finer patterns with fewer steps. But EUV machines are far more complex. They use a plasma light source generated by firing powerful lasers at tin droplets, and because EUV light is absorbed by almost everything, the optical system relies on highly precise mirrors rather than conventional lenses.
That complexity is why EUV systems are difficult to build, move and maintain. An EUV scanner is not just a single machine; it is the product of a global supply chain involving optics, light sources, stages, sensors, control software and long-term service support.

What lithography tools has China been able to obtain?
China has never received an ASML EUV system. For years, however, Chinese fabs were able to buy foreign DUV lithography tools, including advanced immersion systems, which became the backbone of China’s mature-node expansion and its limited push into more advanced logic chips.
That window has narrowed. The US has pushed the Netherlands and Japan – where Nikon and Canon make DUV systems – to align more closely with American export controls, making it harder for China to import the most advanced lithography tools and obtain related support. Even where some DUV tools remain available, the highest-end models, upgrades, spare parts and maintenance services face greater scrutiny.
Import data reflects that shift. China previously imported large numbers of lithography systems as the country’s fabs expanded capacity. However, Bernstein said China’s lithography equipment imports fell 27 per cent year on year in the first four months of 2026, mainly because of supply constraints, while April imports dropped 60 per cent from a year earlier to US$142 million, accounting for only 5 per cent of total wafer-fabrication equipment imports.
Lithography is not easily replaced by other tools. China has made more progress in some other types of semiconductor equipment, including etching, deposition and cleaning. But advanced lithography remains the hardest piece of the manufacturing chain to localise.
How has SMIC pushed DUV further?
China’s biggest foundry, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), was the best-known example of China’s workaround strategy, while other domestic foundries, including Hua Hong-affiliated Shanghai Huali Microelectronics Corporation (HLMC), had also explored similar routes to push DUV-based manufacturing further, said a semiconductor industry source, who declined to be named because the matter was sensitive.
Without EUV, SMIC has relied on high-end DUV immersion lithography and multi-patterning to make chips that approach the 7-nanometre node, analysts and teardown specialists say. Multi-patterning means splitting a circuit pattern into several exposure and etching steps instead of printing it in one simpler EUV step, allowing older machines to create smaller features but making the process more expensive and harder to control.
A June report by SemiAnalysis, based on a teardown of Huawei’s Kirin 9030, noted that one metric of SMIC’s N+3 process – a 32.5-nanometre minimum metal pitch – was about 10 per cent tighter than Intel’s 18A. But it cautioned that this was a selective comparison, as N+3 reaches TSMC N6-class density through aggressive DUV multi-patterning and design-technology co-optimisation, while paying a price in complexity, efficiency and process control.
That does not mean SMIC has caught up with TSMC, Samsung Electronics or Intel. Many chip can be produced with enough engineering effort and cost tolerance, but commercial production depends on yield, throughput, repeatability and customer confidence.

Leslie Wu, CEO of RHCC, a Chinese semiconductor consulting firm, said DUV multi-patterning was not simply a matter of exposing the same wafer several times. Each exposure must be closely matched with the steps before and after it, and small deviations of only a few nanometres in one layer can become short circuits, open circuits, line-width shifts or yield losses after multiple layers are stacked.
The value of ASML’s high-end NXT immersion DUV systems, Wu said, lies not only in their ability to project finer patterns, but also in overlay accuracy, focus control, cross-machine matching, throughput and long-term stability under heavy production loads.
Wu said the real challenge for 7nm and more advanced processes was not whether a machine could operate, but whether it could support stable mass production over time.
Why is DUV multi-patterning not a full replacement for EUV?
DUV multi-patterning can extend the use of immersion lithography tools, but the cost and process risk rise quickly as chip features shrink, Wu said. The technique breaks patterns that EUV could print in fewer steps into multiple rounds of exposure, etching, alignment and layer stacking, making the process far more sensitive to small deviations.
SemiAnalysis made a similar point in its June report, saying aggressive DUV multi-patterning added masks that increase the risk of overlay error. SMIC can continue to push DUV, the report said, but “each step will get more expensive and less forgiving”.
Service support is also part of the technology barrier. If ASML support, software updates, spare parts, calibration and process tuning were restricted, existing machines might not stop working immediately, Wu said, but their ability to sustain the precision needed for advanced-node production could weaken over time.
For China, that turns the challenge from simply buying new lithography machines to keeping existing advanced DUV capacity operating at a high enough level for 7nm-class production.
Can China build its own advanced lithography machines?
China has been trying to localise lithography tools for years, but the gap remains widest at the most advanced end of the market.
A Changjiang Securities report said China’s domestic lithography supply chain had continued to improve since the launch of the national “02” project in 2006, although the country still lagged the international advanced level.
Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment (SMEE) is widely regarded as China’s leading domestic lithography toolmaker, while other suppliers have been trying to improve key subsystems.
SMEE has drawn more attention in recent years. In December 2023, Shanghai Zhangjiang Group, one of SMEE’s shareholders, said on its official WeChat account that the company had developed a 28nm lithography system, a rare public reference to the progress of China’s front-end lithography programme. The 28nm wording was later removed, however, leaving uncertainty over the machine’s actual status and whether it had entered customer validation or commercial production.
In December 2025, Chinese media reports citing government procurement records said SMEE won a Ministry of Science and Technology order for a single SSC800/10 step-and-scan lithography system worth about 110 million yuan (US$16.2 million). The reports said earlier procurement documents for the same project described the tool as having a resolution of no more than 110nm and overlay accuracy of no more than 15nm.

The difficulty lies in system-level integration. According to Changjiang Securities, the core parts of a lithography machine include the light source, optical system and wafer-stage system. The light source provides exposure energy; the optical system shapes and corrects the light path; and the stage system controls wafer and mask movement with extremely high precision. The report said ASML’s EUV machines contain hundreds of thousands of parts from more than 800 suppliers, underscoring the complexity of the supply chain.
Wu said advanced immersion DUV was especially hard to catch up with because performance depended not only on the scanner’s headline specifications, but also on overlay accuracy, light-source stability, throughput, software control and long-term reliability in real production lines.
Wu noted that ASML introduced its first immersion tool in 2003, but it took years of iteration and customer fab feedback to reach the level of the NXT systems China uses for 7nm-class production through multi-patterning.