AI boom fills up ASM’s order book

Demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips in particular propped up ASM’s second-quarter bookings, coming in at 755 million euro, an increase of 56 percent at constant currencies compared to the same quarter last year. The order intake for memory manufacturing reached a record high as the sector scrambles to satisfy demand from AI chipmakers. Preparations for the N2 logic node also contributed to the rise, although overall logic/foundry intake decreased due to weakening demand from the mature segment.

“All customers are ramping up manufacturing of HBM to support the surging demand of complex AI computing. The high-speed DRAM chips used in these HBM stacks require high-k metal gate atomic layer deposition technology in which we have the leading position,” freshly installed Hichem M’Saad told analysts. He expects more ALD layers to be added to leading-edge DRAM technology in upcoming year.

In logic, ASM stands to benefit from a transition from FinFET to the higher-ALD-layer-count gate-all-around transistor architecture at the upcoming N2 node. “The start of high-volume manufacturing is still targeted in 2025 across our leading customers, although we already have some orders from customers who want to start initial volume manufacturing for part of their products by the end of 2024,” said M’Saad.

Based on these trends, ASM expects sales to pick up in the second half of the year and well into next year. This notwithstanding a sluggish recovery in consumer market segments and ongoing weakness in industrial and automotive. Echoing comments from ASML’s management, M’Saad said that although “conditions in end markets continue to be mixed, the recovery of the wafer fab equipment is gradually picking up pace.”