Sub-system
Photolithography: printing the pattern onto the wafer
Every feature on a chip starts as a pattern projected onto light-sensitive film. How small that pattern can be, and how precisely it can be aligned to the layers beneath it, is what a process generation actually is — which makes lithography both the most capital-intensive step and the one with the fewest suppliers.
In one sentence
Photolithography is the process of projecting a circuit pattern from a mask onto a light-sensitive coating on a wafer, so that a subsequent chemical step can transfer that pattern into the material below.
A chip is built up as dozens of patterned layers. For each one, the wafer is coated with a photosensitive resist, exposed to light through a mask carrying that layer's pattern, and developed so that exposed or unexposed regions wash away. What remains is a stencil for the etching or deposition step that follows. This cycle repeats sixty to a hundred times.
Resolution is governed by the wavelength of the light and the numerical aperture of the optics. Shorter wavelength and larger aperture print smaller features — which is why the industry's history is a sequence of wavelength reductions, and why the last of those reductions took two decades and tens of billions of dollars to commercialise.
Alignment matters as much as resolution. Each layer must land on the previous one within a few nanometres across a wafer that has been heated, coated and processed in between. The measurement and correction systems that achieve this are as much of the machine as the optics.
How this breaks down
Split by the light source and the technique that makes small features possible with it.
- EUV lithographyHow extreme ultraviolet exposure works, why it took decades, and what depends on it.Breaks down into: EUV light source · EUV drive laser · EUV projection optics3 pages belowChokepoint
- DUV immersion193 nanometre light through water, plus multi-patterning — how features far smaller than the wavelength get printed.Definition pageChokepoint
- Masks and pelliclesThe patterned plate every exposure copies from, and the membrane that keeps dust off it.Breaks down into: Mask blanks · Mask writers · Pellicles3 pages belowChokepoint
What this depends on
2 of these are marked as a chokepoint: a handful of qualified suppliers, a multi-year lead time, or a single geography.
- Supply chainChokepoint
Precision optics
The lenses and mirrors are among the most precisely manufactured objects made at any scale, and come from essentially one supplier.
EUV projection optics - Supply chainChokepoint
Photoresist chemistry
The film that records the pattern is a specialised chemical product with a concentrated, largely Japanese supplier base.
Resists and chemicals - Technology
Overlay metrology
Each layer has to land on the one beneath it within a few nanometres. Without measurement and correction between exposures, resolution is wasted because the layers do not line up.
Metrology and test
What depends on this
Other pages in this map that name Photolithography as something they cannot do without.
- Semiconductors · Wafer fabrication · Deposition and etchPlasma etchEtch copies a pattern; it does not create one. Without a developed resist or hard mask defining where material should stay, a plasma etch simply thins the whole wafer.
- Biotechnology · Research toolsDNA sequencingConsumables manufactured with semiconductor patterning; the cost curve depends on that process.
Companies across Photolithography
Every company named on a step below this page, ordered by how many of those steps it appears at. Compiled from the pages themselves rather than written separately, so the two cannot disagree. Not a ranking and not a recommendation.
- Carl Zeiss SMTPrivate3 steps
- TrumpfPrivate2 steps
12 more companies appear at a single step each; they are named on the pages for those steps.
How these pages are written
Each page explains one technology in plain language, states what it depends on, and names companies by what they supply at that step. Company roles are described qualitatively and deliberately carry no market shares, revenue figures or rankings — those change faster than an explainer can, and a stale number is worse than none. Ticker links point at company pages on this site and are provided for reference only.
Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or a forecast. A company named on a page about a technology is not thereby a good investment, and the chokepoints described are structural facts about supply chains rather than predictions about prices. Technology moves; where a page describes something as unresolved or in development, that was true when it was written.
Plutux is not an investment adviser. Market data and AI-generated analysis are for information and education only, not investment advice. Disclaimer