Dylan PatelFounder and Chief Analyst at SemiAnalysis

ASML is bringing lithography-grade precision to hybrid bonding.

24 Oct 2026 · 2 min

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2:03

In this video, Dylan Patel discusses the landscape of hybrid bonding equipment, contrasting the established pick‑and‑place solutions from vendors such as Besse and ASMPT with ASML’s novel approach that leverages its front‑end lithography‑grade sub‑nanometer overlay capabilities. The conversation explains how current tools use mechanical arms to position chiplets onto a wafer without applying force, followed by a separate annealing step for bonding. ASML, traditionally a lithography supplier, proposes to bring its ultra‑precise alignment technology directly into the hybrid bonding process, aiming to support ever‑finer bond pitches and higher signal densities. The speakers outline the potential benefits of this front‑end integration, the technical challenges of adapting lithography precision to a die‑to‑wafer or wafer‑to‑die workflow, and the broader implications for future high‑density chiplet integration.

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Okay. So can you guys tell me a little bit about what the existing tools are? You mentioned Bessie, for example. It won't be just ASML that's building a hybrid bonding tool, right?
That's right. So the current state of the art is from the likes of Bessie and several others as well, ASMPT and such, where they are coming from a pick and place kind of background. So that means the businesses and what they used to do well, what they are doing very well is kind of doing the pick and place of the individual small chiplets. Right. And the placement arm, the mechanical arm with the stepper motor controls and things like that, they are very good at doing the overlay, right, from the die onto the base wafer and then placing it down. It doesn't use any force. It just places it down onto the bond pads. And then the bonding step comes later when you do the anneal, right? So that is where the current technology and state of the art is. However, ASML is coming in from a different location, which is coming from the front end, right? So that means ASML's tools, they are regularly used in the sub-nanometer alignment overlay, right? When you're trying to manufacture really intricate transistors, your lithography patterning, we're looking at extremely fine grain control, right? So it's easily modeled as a higher precision, right? And so For ASML's perspective, it's like, okay, if we already have this, why not find a way to implement that for hybrid bonding, especially now hybrid bonding is getting to finer and finer pitches, right, for your bond, hybrid bond pitch, right? So how many signals can you get per square millimeter down and in between the 2 dies is becoming more and more important. And so by coming at it from the front-end perspective, they don't have any issues with regards to overlay, right? Their challenge is how do we implement our capabilities or their capabilities into a system where you can bring the dies to the wafer, or in this case, the wafer to the die. Yeah, so it's a pretty novel solution, right? And we also discuss some of the challenges that they might face versus the current technologies.