ASM Bets on New Materials as Traditional Chip Scaling Reaches Its Limits

What happened

Glen Wilk, vice president of technology at ASM, said during a CEO Summit panel session at SEMICON West 2026, held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Oct. 14 local time, that traditional scaling has effectively reached the end of its useful life and that materials will no longer merely enable scaling but will drive semiconductor innovation. He explained that process miniaturization alone can no longer meet the computing performance and power efficiency requirements of AI, citing transistor gates as an example: silicon dioxide, used as a gate dielectric for more than 50 years, was replaced by high-k materials such as hafnium oxide to reduce gate leakage current and improve transistor performance. He also emphasized the need for materials innovation in thermal management. ASM's main revenue sources are ALD and epitaxy equipment; new interconnect metals such as molybdenum can be deposited using ALD, and silicon and silicon-germanium thin films for gate-all-around (GAA) transistors are grown using epitaxy equipment, so the introduction of new materials creates revenue-growth opportunities for ASM. The remarks contain no specific price, output or order data; the source does not state the cause beyond the stated rationale.

Impact and signal

Affected components and suppliers

Source and time

Source: The Elec · 10/15/2026 · View original source