ASML - The (Hidden) Champion of Photolithography

ASML and MAOT have coop­erated for many years. In addi­tion to sever­al Mas­ter's theses writ­ten over the previ­ous years in col­la­bora­tion with ASML and su­pervised by PD Dr An­dreas Erd­mann in recent years, eight grad­uates of the Elite Grad­uate Pro­gramme "Advanced Optical Technologies" have al­ready taken up em­ploy­ment at ASML. In 2021, ASML also estab­lished a per­ma­nent coop­era­tion with the Max Planck In­stitute for the Phys­ics of Light (MPL). MAOT is close­ly linked to the MPL through many lec­turers work­ing at the MPL and nu­mer­ous Mas­ter's theses car­ried out there.

The next day was packed with activi­ties ar­ranged by the ASML team. In the morn­ing, they were given an exten­sive intro­duc­tion to the tech­nolo­gies used in ASML sys­tems. The new Expe­rience Cen­ter pro­vided im­pres­sive 3D virtu­aliza­tions of the ma­chines and a rare in­sight into the clean room via live cam­eras.

The MAOT stu­dents were par­ticu­larly inter­ested in the highly fo­cused “pitch talks”, in which the com­pa­ny’s tech­nolo­gy ex­perts each had seven minutes to pre­sent cen­tral tech­nical as­pects of the sys­tems. These talks were far more de­tailed than the usual com­pany presenta­tions, re­quir­ing all partic­ipants to sign a non-disclo­sure agreement.

The MAOT stu­dents were par­ticu­larly inter­ested in the highly fo­cused “pitch talks”, in which the com­pa­ny’s tech­nolo­gy ex­perts each had seven minutes to pre­sent cen­tral tech­nical as­pects of the sys­tems. These talks were far more de­tailed than the usual com­pany presenta­tions, re­quir­ing all partic­ipants to sign a non-disclo­sure agreement. Lunch was held in the new, gal­ler­y-style can­teen, providing both tasty snacks and an in­sight into the work­ings of a mod­ern high-tech com­pany: Around the room, small groups sat in front of screens en­gaged in lively dis­cussions. The can­teen is a popu­lar place for em­ploy­ees to meet and a wel­come addi­tion to tradi­tional spaces such as offic­es and meet­ing rooms. The stu­dents’ per­sonal im­pres­sions re­flect­ed the ap­proach con­sis­tently em­phasized by the tech­nolo­gy ex­perts: In a high-tech com­pany, it is essen­tial that all em­ploy­ees have good and varied com­muni­cation skills. Along with sound knowledge and inno­vative capa­bili­ties, this is one of the key quali­fica­tions for tech­nolog­ical suc­cess. In the after­noon, the stu­dents were divid­ed into six small groups and put to work. The ASML ex­perts pre­sent­ed them with a real prob­lem from their pro­duc­tion facili­ties. As well as crea­tive ideas, solu­tions were re­quired that would be stable, not too com­pli­cated, and finan­cially viable for the cus­tomer. The stu­dents spent 90 minutes focus­ing inten­sively on the prob­lem with sup­port from three ASML ex­perts with whom they could dis­cuss their ideas. This was fol­lowed by a wrap-up ses­sion to an­swer any re­main­ing ques­tions. The group was joined by ex­perts from the Hu­man Re­sources de­part­ment to dis­cuss initial ideas for future in­tern­ships and mas­ter’s the­ses.

Another high­light was the con­tact with MAOT grad­uates who work at ASML. Six of the eight did not miss the op­por­tunity to take part in one or other part of the pro­gramme and were able to share valu­able expe­rienc­es in inten­sive dis­cussions with the stu­dents. Alex Mu­thumbi and Pankaj Bhardwaj, who had only re­cently start­ed their work, sum­marised their expe­rienc­es in a short presentation and gave the cur­rent stu­dents rec­om­men­da­tions for their stud­ies - in­clud­ing the essen­tial ad­vice to take part in the Elite Cup foot­ball tour­nament.

Text: Dr. Jür­gen Großmann, Elite Grad­uate Pro­gram „Ad­vanced Op­tical Tech­nolo­gies“