Gaming: Company Behind The Machines That Make Pretty Much All Our Computer...

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If you haven't heard of ASML, it's the company that makes the machines upon which modern computing currently depends. Without ASML, well, computer chips would be very different. And now ASML is claiming a breakthrough in one of the key bottlenecks for manufacturing cutting-edge silicon thanks to a big boost in light production.

ASML currently has a stranglehold on what's known as the EUV lithography market. It is, indeed, ASML's machines that everyone from TSMC to Intel uses to make chips. Long story cut preposterously short, computer chips are made by shining light through patterned masks onto wafers of silicon. Add a few chemicals and the result is an etching in the pattern of the chips in question.

Of course the key here is making the details as small and accurate as possible. And that's largely a function of the wavelength of "light" being used. The shorter the wavelength, the smaller the details that can be etched onto wafer and in turn the more features, such as transistors, can be crammed into a chip of a given size.

Source: PC Gamer