Six strategic priorities, Long-term growth
Together with our partners, we provide leading patterning solutions that drive the advancement of microchips
ASML makes the machines that print the patterns of microchips onto silicon wafers, and is the only company that makes EUV lithography systems. Its strategy is holistic lithography: the scanners, the software that sets them up, and the systems that measure what they print, backed by service for as long as a machine is in use.
The smallest feature a system can print depends on the wavelength of its light and on how much light its optics gather, its numerical aperture (NA). In more than 40 years ASML has made that feature about a hundred times smaller.
365 nm
i-line
CD = k₁ × 365 nm ÷ NA
279
DUV systems
44
EUV 0.33 NA systems
4
EUV 0.55 NA systems
Lithography systems sold in 2025. With metrology and inspection systems, ASML sold 535.
A chip is built up layer by layer, and every layer goes through the same steps. Lithography is the only one where each chip on a wafer is worked on by itself, so it is where yield and performance can be tuned chip by chip. ASML sells what surrounds that step, so customers make more good wafers a day.
ASML’s business strategy names six priorities to drive its long-term growth.
“Consistently deliver innovative, high-quality and reliable holistic lithography solutions that foster long-term customer partnerships and set industry standards for excellence”
Customer satisfaction was 88% in 2025, up from 86% in 2024.
Around 10,000 customer support employees keep systems running around the clock.
In 2025 ASML sold €16.1 billion of systems to logic chipmakers and €8.4 billion to memory makers, and earned €8.2 billion from service and upgrades for systems already in use. Each chip on the wafer is €100 million.
€32.7bn
Total net sales in 2025
Installed Base Management grew 26.2% in 2025, as the number of systems in use grew and more EUV systems were upgraded in the field.
Lithography is the only step in making a chip where each chip on a wafer is worked on by itself, and it sets how small a chip’s features can be. ASML’s strategy is built around that step and everything that tunes it. We recommend finding the step in your customers’ work that decides their results, and building around it.
Service and upgrades for machines already in customers’ fabs brought in €8.2 billion in 2025, a quarter of ASML’s sales, and nearly all of its PAS 5500 systems from the early 1990s are still in use. We recommend planning for what a customer needs over the whole life of what you sell.
Around 80% of what goes into an ASML system comes from suppliers, and one partner makes all of its optics, so ecosystem relationships are one of its six priorities. We recommend setting shared goals for cost, quality, and sustainability with the suppliers you depend on most.
Headwater is not connected with ASML Holding N.V. ASML, TWINSCAN, YieldStar, and HMI are trade marks of their owners. Updated 28 September 2026.