According to TechNews Taiwan, Intel has made significant progress in implementing ASML's cutting-edge High-NA EUV lithography technology. The company has successfully completed the assembly of its second High-NA "Twinscan EXE" EUV system at its Portland facility, as confirmed by Mark Phillips, Intel's Director of Lithography Hardware. Christophe Fouquet, CEO of ASML, highlighted that the new assembly process allows for direct installation at the customer's site, eliminating the need for disassembly and reassembly, thus saving time and resources. Phillips expressed enthusiasm about the technology, noting that the improvements offered by High-NA EUV machines have surpassed expectations compared to standard EUV systems. Given the massive $380 million price point of these High-NA systems, any savings are valuable in the process.

The rapid progress in installation and implementation of High-NA EUV technology at Intel's facilities positions the company strongly for production transition. With all necessary infrastructure in place and inspections of High-NA EUV masks already underway, Intel aims to have its Intel 14A process in mass production by 2026-2027. As Intel leads in High-NA EUV adoption, other industry giants are following suit. ASML plans to deliver High-NA EUV systems to TSMC by year-end, with rumors suggesting that TSMC's first system will possibly arrive in September. Samsung has also committed to the technology, although recent reports indicate a potential reduction in their procurement plans. Additionally, this development has sparked discussions about the future of photoresist technology, with Phillips suggesting that while Chemically Amplified Resist (CAR) is currently sufficient, future advancements may require metal oxide photoresists. This provides a small insight into Intel's future nodes.

In a bid to increase interest and feed the Radeon rebels with hope for their latest high-performance GPU architecture, AMD is beginning a celebration of sorts, a road trip that will span two continents. Now this community tour won't be a non-stop travel and showcase - it's really only going to stop in two places. Still, AMD will be giving those lucky enough to be in attendance a chance to visit their Radeon RX Vega Experience area, where you'll be able to game on the upcoming graphics card and take in the experience, trade-show-style.

The first stop is in the old continent: the Radeon Experience will be setting up shop in the Akvárium Klub in Budapest, Hungary, from 2 to 7 CET. Then, the Radeon team will travel across the pond towards the USA, more specifically, towards PDXLAN in Portland, from July 21st to July 23rd. Finally, the last stop is one we knew about already: SIGGRAPH in the City of Angels. As we knew, they confirm that "Details on the Radeon RX Vega are coming during SIGGRAPH 2017, so you'll want to pay attention to what's happening during this technology summit taking place in the last week of July." So now you know. Are you going to go out of your way to attend?