ASML Investor Day 2022: All expectations exceeded and future still bright

For the ASML Investor Day 2022, the Dutch factory supplier has further expanded its already high expectations for the coming years. Every forecast made so far will therefore be exceeded in the period up to 2030. The Chip Acts in the USA, Europe and Asia play into their hands.

Massive investments fuel demand

It was an impressive slide presented by ASML on Friday afternoon. It only combined the three largest chip manufacturers in the world: TSMC, Samsung and Intel. Their efforts in the chip business alone for the coming years amount to several hundred billion US dollars, often subsidized by the states in which they are built. And as the largest, sometimes even the only supplier, only ASML is available, ASML's CEO naturally rejoiced a little. Nothing works there without EUV and from 2026/2027 also the High-NA EUV expansion stage.

It is precisely these investments and plans by the large manufacturers, flanked by smaller foundries, that allow ASML to look to the future even rosier than before. Growth is expected in every area, and the expectations of last year's Analyst Day have in some cases been significantly exceeded. Average growth will be nine percent per year until 2030.

The chip roadmaps are intact

As ASML shows with reference to the roadmaps of research institutes and manufacturers, all future plans are also intact in this area. Latest technologies make their way first in the logic space, but the DRAM space is also making steady progress, as Micron recently demonstrated with the introduction of the 1-beta process, which fits right into ASML's schedule.

Associated with ASML's business, one sees a much higher demand for wafers per month, which of course first have to be exposed by machines. Here, too, ASML is now aiming for much higher capacities, in the end it could be up to 930,000 wafers that have to be exposed per month in the best case.

More capacity and turnover

In order to provide the necessary machines, ASML plans to expand the capacity. New clean rooms are created that can manufacture more exposure systems. Theoretically, 60 EUV systems per year and up to 90 DUV scanners are to be manufactured by 2026. The number will continue to increase until 2023, and then there will also be high-NA solutions for the absolute high-end chip segment. A scanner there will cost at least 350 million euros, but ASML is more confident than ever that they will follow in EUV's footsteps and continue the company's success.

Translated into numbers, ASML now expects the growth in each area to be partially set, which was previously to be found as a forecast at the very upper limit. In some areas, the minimum and maximum targets are hardly the same; the market for DUV systems has the greatest fluctuation. In the short term, however, these are a sales driver with much higher demand than previously planned. By 2023, sales could increase to up to 60 billion euros, last year it was almost 19 billion euros.