SEOUL (Reuters) – Jay Y. Lee, Vice Chairman of Samsung Electronics (OTC), met with Peter Wennink (NASDAQ) NV CEO on Tuesday. They discussed cooperating on the adoption high-end chip equipment.

According to a company statement, Lee was joined by executives of the Dutch multinational for extensive discussions about the supply of EUV lithography equipment. This is essential for the implementation and maintenance processes necessary for the next generation semiconductor manufacturing.

Without going into detail, it was also mentioned that prospects were being discussed for the chip market as well as technology trends.

ASML’s EUV machinery is crucial to advanced chipmaking. It costs up to $160million each. This has caused a bottleneck in chipmakers Samsung, TSMC, Intel (NASDAQ:), which plan to spend over $100 billion to construct semiconductor plants.

Samsung could secure up to 18 EUV machines through ASML this upcoming year, compared with the previous 15 and 8 estimates, Lee Jaeyun, an analyst at Yuanta Securities stated in comments.

Samsung employs EUV technology in DRAM and chip contract manufacturing. Samsung has declined to discuss future EUV adoption plans. Samsung was the first company to adopt EUV for DRAM manufacturing.

Samsung announced in January its plans to increase supply of high-performance goods and expand the application of EUV technology, which is an industry leader in memory chip manufacturing, in earnings calls.

According to the company, its investments in chip contract manufacturing were primarily focused on expanding capacity for advanced EUV 5-nanometer processes at its Pyeongtaek South Korea plant.

Samsung stated that Lee visited the microelectronics think tank IMEC Wednesday.