From Lasers to Lithography
Where Baltic photonics enters the global semiconductor supply chain
Most people imagine semiconductor manufacturing as a world of silicon. Cleanrooms. Wafer fabs. Extreme ultraviolet lithography. Machines costing hundreds of millions of euros. Yet before a semiconductor can be manufactured, inspected or packaged, something else must happen first. It has to become visible.
Not to the human eye, but to an increasingly sophisticated network of lasers, optical materials and photonic systems capable of measuring structures only a few nanometres across. As semiconductor manufacturing approaches the physical limits of silicon, light is becoming one of the industry’s most important engineering tools.
As semiconductors approach their physical limits, progress increasingly depends not only on silicon, but on our ability to generate, guide and measure light.
This is where the Baltic States quietly enter the global semiconductor supply chain. Rather than manufacturing chips themselves, Lithuania and Latvia have developed specialised expertise in technologies that enable the semiconductor industry to see, measure, guide and control light with extraordinary precision.
🟦 Why Silicon Needs Light
For decades, progress in microelectronics followed a familiar path. Smaller transistors meant faster processors, lower energy consumption and greater computing power.
That approach continues today, but as components shrink towards atomic dimensions, manufacturing becomes exponentially more demanding. Measuring structures only a few nanometres wide requires a level of precision that conventional mechanical systems alone can no longer deliver. Increasingly, light performs that role.
Ultrafast laser pulses inspect microscopic defects without damaging fragile materials. Optical systems calibrate manufacturing equipment with extraordinary accuracy. Photonic technologies transmit information at extremely high speeds while generating less heat than conventional electrical connections.
The future of semiconductor manufacturing is therefore not only about producing smaller chips. It is also about mastering the physics of light.
🟦 Lithuania: Engineering Light
Lithuania has quietly established itself as one of Europe’s leading centres for ultrafast laser technology. Companies such as Light Conversion and Ekspla have become internationally recognised for developing femtosecond laser systems—devices capable of generating light pulses lasting only one quadrillionth of a second.
The scale is almost impossible to imagine. One femtosecond relates to a single second in roughly the same way that one second relates to more than thirty million years.
Such extraordinarily short pulses make it possible to interact with materials while generating virtually no heat. Instead of melting or deforming microscopic structures, they remove or analyse material with exceptional precision.
Lithuania does not compete by building the world’s largest semiconductor factories. It competes by mastering the precision of light that modern semiconductor manufacturing increasingly depends upon.
These technologies support a wide range of applications throughout the semiconductor ecosystem. They help inspect silicon wafers for microscopic defects, calibrate advanced manufacturing equipment and enable highly precise scientific measurements used in semiconductor research. The same laser technologies also support medical devices, quantum research and advanced scientific instrumentation.
Lithuania does not manufacture the world’s largest lithography systems. Instead, it contributes some of the optical technologies that make precision manufacturing increasingly possible.
🟦 Latvia: Guiding Light
If Lithuania specialises in generating light, Latvia has built internationally recognised expertise in guiding, controlling and integrating it.
Around the Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP UL) and Riga Technical University (RTU), researchers work on optical materials, thin-film technologies, photonic integrated circuits and advanced sensor technologies. These disciplines may appear highly specialised. In reality, they address one of the semiconductor industry’s emerging challenges.
Moving information through ever smaller electronic circuits creates increasing resistance, energy consumption and heat. Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) offer an alternative by transmitting information using photons rather than electrons in specific applications.
Innovation is not only about creating new technologies. It is also about connecting materials, optics and engineering into systems that industry can actually use.
Making that possible requires far more than miniature optical components. It depends on advanced materials capable of controlling light with extraordinary stability, thin-film coatings engineered at nanometre scale and highly specialised packaging technologies that connect photonic and electronic systems without degrading performance.
Advanced packaging is becoming one of the crucial interfaces between photonics and conventional microelectronics. It is here that optical and electronic components must operate together with extreme precision, allowing research prototypes to evolve into reliable industrial technologies.
Supported by the Latvian Microchip Competence Centre, established under the EU Chips Act, Latvia is strengthening its position as a research and innovation hub connecting academic expertise with industrial applications.
🟦 One Continuous Value Chain
Viewed separately, Lithuania’s laser manufacturers and Latvia’s research institutes appear to belong to different worlds. Viewed through the lens of semiconductor manufacturing, they form complementary parts of a much larger technological ecosystem.
Advanced optical materials make it possible to manipulate light with exceptional precision. Photonic integrated circuits guide that light through increasingly complex architectures. Ultrafast laser systems then use precisely controlled pulses to inspect, calibrate and analyse semiconductor components during manufacturing and research.
The future of semiconductor leadership may be determined less by who builds the biggest factories, and more by who controls the specialised knowledge that makes those factories possible.
Together these technologies form an invisible optical layer beneath modern microelectronics. It is a layer that rarely attracts public attention, yet increasingly determines what advanced semiconductor manufacturing can achieve.
🟦 Beyond the Fabrication Plant
Europe’s semiconductor strategy is often measured by the number of fabrication facilities it can attract. Those investments are undoubtedly important.
Yet even the world’s most advanced fabrication facilities depend on a far broader ecosystem of scientific research, specialised materials, optical engineering and precision technologies developed across many countries and institutions. A fabrication plant can only operate at the highest levels of precision when supported by the measurement systems, optical components and material sciences that underpin every stage of the manufacturing process.
The Baltic States illustrate that technological leadership does not always emerge through industrial scale alone. Sometimes it develops through mastering highly specialised capabilities that become increasingly difficult to replace.
As semiconductor manufacturing approaches new physical limits, Europe’s competitive advantage may depend as much on the technologies surrounding silicon as on silicon itself.
The future of microelectronics will not be shaped by chips alone. Increasingly, it will also be shaped by light.
Next in this series
SIGNAL III — From Physics to Prosperity
How research becomes industrial strategy
Scientific breakthroughs are only the beginning. Europe’s long-term competitiveness depends on its ability to translate research into companies, industrial ecosystems and global value chains. The final Signal examines how the Baltic States are attempting to bridge the gap between scientific excellence and economic impact.
Credit
Illustration: AI-generated artwork for Altair Media Europe
Caption
From Lasers to Lithography explores how Lithuania’s ultrafast laser expertise and Latvia’s research in optical materials, photonic integrated circuits and advanced packaging form complementary parts of Europe’s emerging photonics ecosystem—an invisible but increasingly strategic layer beneath the global semiconductor industry.
