SemiAnalysis reports that although ASML has not announced anything publicly, its 27 bonding patent families filed between December 2022 and November 2024, a March news report and its own roadmap all point to it developing a hybrid bonding tool, likely starting with the harder die-to-wafer (D2W) variant. The design differs from traditional bonders: each die rides its own holder along a track, stopping at inspection, cleaning, plasma activation, topography and leveling metrology, and coarse and fine alignment stations before a bonding station where the chuck lifts the bottom wafer to meet the die. SemiAnalysis argues ASML can reuse its lithography expertise in alignment sensing, such as the ORION wafer-alignment sensor, and particle control, but still must solve feed-forward metrology, the die-to-wafer contact, modification of non-bonding tools and loop cleanliness; advanced logic is expected to adopt first, pressuring Besi, currently the only supplier with D2W tools in volume production.

ASML·Besi·TSMC·+5