ASML's Best Selling Product Isn't What You Think It Is(www.siliconimist.com)
95 pointsby johncole7 hours ago12 comments
  • cassianoleal7 hours ago
    > Even at the absolute bleeding edge of human physics, we still have a fundamental desire to play.

    I'd say play is of fundamental importance at the bleeding edge of knowledge and technology. Without play, there's no appetite for failure. Without appetite for failure, there's no progress, no novel solutions, no creativity.

    • OneDeuxTriSeiGo2 hours ago
      I immediately have to reach for a quote from the game "The Talos Principle" as I think it just perfectly sums up my view on how core play and games are to humanity and how they are essential to what makes us as a species special:

      > The answer that came to me again and again was play. Every human society in recorded history has games. We don’t just solve problems out of necessity. We do it for fun. Even as adults. Leave a human being alone with a knotted rope and they will unravel it. Leave a human being alone with blocks and they will build something. Games are part of what makes us human. We see the world as a mystery, a puzzle, because we've always been a species of problem-solvers.

      https://taloswiki.org/images/3/36/Scientist-02_ProblemSolver...

    • 4 hours ago
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  • voidUpdate7 hours ago
    I'm not particularly surprised that the $600 Lego set sells better than the $400 million lithography tool...
    • mrweasel6 hours ago
      It's $200, otherwise I think it would be a bit on the high end in terms of price per piece. $600 is the cheapest version on eBay.

      Unless you need the box, you can get the instructions online (https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-215601/NightHawk11991/asml-...). Though that might be a recreation.

      • voidUpdate6 hours ago
        (I couldn't see a listed price in the article, so I just went for the cheapest resale price they said. Thanks for clarifying)
    • shubhamjain5 hours ago
      The kind of garbage that gets to the front-page is mind-boggling. Okay, maybe there's some useful trivia here, but combined with the headline, it's just trash clickbait.
  • btown5 hours ago
    For those interested in ASML, and how much engineering goes into being able to make EUV lithography work reliably at scale for 3nm nodes (by hitting individual droplets of tin with highly accurate lasers and turning them into plasma!), I highly recommend this recent (Dec 2025) Veritasium video about them:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUHjLxm3V0

    For more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithograph...

    (There's something incredible and downright "alchemical" about the fact that the reason our sand can "think" is because we use light to vaporize tin which then carves intricate glyphs into the sand!)

  • nikitaga6 hours ago
    > Employee Only: You cannot buy these in stores. They are sold exclusively to ASML employees with a strictly enforced “one per person” rule.

    Wonder if they include this lego set as a gift with their real machines? Or are they like – our commercial agreement is worth $400M and not a lego set above that.

  • throwaway20375 hours ago
    1) Why is this entry flagged?

    2) For once, I had a good laugh from the obvious clickbait title. Hat tip. You nerd sniped me good!

    3) What do you think ASML had to pay Lego to design and create this model? Or maybe Lego has a small division that does custom models like this? Do we know the employee cost for the Lego set? I have not access to this company store link: https://asmlstore.com/products/twinscan-exe-5000-lego-set

    4) How long until someone on YouTube creates a functioning lithography tool (say, 1 million nanometers grade) using only authetic Lego materials?

  • nottorp7 hours ago
    When I saw the title I thought it would be some plushie. Turns out I wasn't far from the truth!
    • behohippy7 hours ago
      You might have a business idea there. I wouldn't mind a twinscan plushie for sitting on top of the workstation.
    • johncole7 hours ago
      Spot on!
  • AntiUSAbah6 hours ago
    "Why it matters"

    No it doesn't.

    And the only thing it does again, to remind me, that this is cool as hell but i'm not able to buy it...

  • bux935 hours ago
    Two words. Volkswagen sausage.
  • j_maffe5 hours ago
    Can we please do something about these AI slop articles? It's becoming really sadenning having to open a frontpage link only to find the same, meritless, braindead article one time after the other.
    • planb5 hours ago
      You're absolutely right! "Why Does This Matter?" was a dead giveaway that this article was not written by a human — it was written by a large language model.

      But really: "Why does this matter?" When looking at an article like this, I rarely read the text. This is just fluff no matter if AI-generated or hand written. The info is "there's a LEGO set of that ASML machine" and the picture of that set. That's all I want to know before clicking the back button.

    • girvo5 hours ago
      I’m flagging them, but it’s not enough. Front page is full of it these days. Sad times.
    • john_strinlai5 hours ago
      and then open up the comments section, just to see several identical "ai slop" comments and someone inevitably making a "you're absolutely right" joke.
  • keernan5 hours ago
    They sell fewer than 400 machines a year.

    https://www.asml.com/en/news/press-releases/2026/q4-2025-fin...

  • 2ndorderthought6 hours ago
    "why does this matter?" Oh hello AI slop how are you today?
    • markovBaj6 hours ago
      for me it was the 3 bullet point list, esp. the "The Sales Gap"
    • amelius6 hours ago
      Maybe. At some point, humans will start sounding like AI.
      • mschuster915 hours ago
        They already do, I recently heard people literally talk like tiktok videos in real life...
    • johncole6 hours ago
      Is this some sort of ai indicator now?
      • masfuerte5 hours ago
        Any of these things on their own do not indicate AI but this article is riddled with tells, including this one.
      • skrebbel6 hours ago
        Yep
  • afandian7 hours ago
    Saved you a click:

    > But right now, the most coveted product coming out of ASML is the 1,000-piece Lego version.

    I thought it might be something like service contracts or chemical refills.

    • newsclues7 hours ago
      And it's not available to the public. Bummer.
      • cassianoleal7 hours ago
        There is a knock-off on AliExpress.

        https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005010807104987.html

        • haddonist7 hours ago
          Might be worth contacting the seller before buying.

          The "Color" (ie: type/what's being sold) is "PDF Manual By Email", so it's possible they selling just the PDF assembly manual...

        • loudmax7 hours ago
          The Chinese knock-off TwinScan is almost as good as the original and far less expensive.

          Because of course it is.

        • johncole7 hours ago
          Brilliant. I knew there had to be a solution somewhere.
        • pantalaimon5 hours ago
          I would have expected a LEGO version of the SMEE machine
      • doe886 hours ago
        It must be to prevent corporate spying ;)
      • johncole7 hours ago
        Find a friend that works at ASML?
        • bell-cot7 hours ago
          > ... sold exclusively to ASML employees with a strictly enforced “one per person” rule.

          You'll need to be their very best friend. And make sure they're not too close with their family, nor a big fan of either Lego or collectables, before you cozy up.