ASML Beyond Chips: EUV Lithography Opens the Path to Mass Nanopores for Medicine
It turns out that the most complex and expensive machines in the semiconductor industry are capable of transforming more than just the chip market. The research center IMEC has shown that ASML’s EUV lithography systems can be used for industrial-scale production of solid-state nanopores—a key component of next-generation biomedicine.
Nanopores are holes just a few nanometers in diameter—about 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. When individual molecules such as DNA, proteins, or viruses pass through such a pore, they generate measurable electrical signals. This principle underlies DNA sequencing technologies, biosensors, drug delivery systems, and advanced diagnostic platforms.
Until now, nanopores were manufactured slowly, expensively, and only at laboratory scale. IMEC has for the first time demonstrated that ASML’s EUV lithography can be used to form uniform arrays of nanopores on standard 300-mm silicon nitride wafers—quickly, precisely, and reproducibly. The concept was presented at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting 2025.
If the technology enters mass production, nanopores could move beyond research laboratories into clinics, hospitals, and large-scale diagnostics. This would mean cheaper tests, accelerated genomics, personalized medicine, and even exotic directions such as molecular data storage.
A rare case in which EUV lithography stops being a symbol of the “chip race” and becomes a tool of a biomedical revolution.
