Glossary term
Photolithography
Light-based patterning of circuits onto silicon; the foundational step beneath all modern chip manufacturing.
Photolithography is the light-based process of patterning circuit features onto silicon, the foundational step beneath all modern chip manufacturing. It repeatedly projects circuit patterns through masks onto a light-sensitive coating, building up a chip layer by layer. The leading edge requires extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light, which is the source of ASML's strategic position. See Foundry Economics 101.