After a record year in 2011, ASML, the word’s No.1 maker of lithography equipment, expects Q1 sales to be €1.2bn – up on Q4 sales of €710m, and H1 2012 sales of about €2.4bn.
“We expect a healthy start for 2012, as we plan Q1 2012 bookings at a level above that of Q4 2011 and a first half sales level of about EUR 2.4 billion,” says Eric Meurice, ASML CEO, “our customers are continuing their introductions of advanced chip designs with the need to build critical mass capacity for those nodes. This trend is extended from 2011 for the logic segment, accelerating for NAND flash memory and expected to kick in for DRAM memory later in the year.”
EUV is gradually getting into the market reaching 16nm levels with a target of 60 wafers an hour in H2 2012.
Five EUV systems are operational and printing wafers, the sixth system is expected to start imaging during the current quarter.
“More than 5,300 EUV wafers have now been processed and imaging at 16 nm exposure has been demonstrated,” says Meurice, “we are focusing on the light source, which currently limits the system throughput, to reach our objective of proven 60 wafers per hour in the second half of 2012.”
Q1 gross margin is expected to be 43% and R&D is budgeted at €145m.
Holistic Lithography add-ons, which optimise mask design through Brion computational lithography and which improve scanner control using Yieldstar metrology, generated close to €200m in sales in 2011.
