A year ago, when Intel’s stock was beaten down to a gut-wrenching $20 per share, the mainstream tech media had written the company’s obituary. And Hillsboro (OR )’s tech future was about to be buried with it. Wall Street analysts claimed legacy chipmaker Intel was too slow, too debt-ridden, and too far behind competitors like TSMC and Nvidia to ever catch up.
But here at The Hillsboro Herald, we didn’t buy the doom-and-gloom. Guided by our local industry insider, “Bagger”, a man with decades in the semiconductor trenches who taught us how to see the broader “field”, we made a series of bold, highly contrarian predictions. We wrote that Intel’s survival and future comeback hinged on a secret weapon hiding in plain sight in the cleanrooms of Ronler Acres: ASML’s next-generation High-NA EUV lithography tools.
Today, the Dutch lithography giant ASML and Intel jointly released a bombshell announcement that proves our reporting was spot on.
According to ASML’s official July 15, 2026 press release, Intel has officially entered high-volume manufacturing (HVM) for its next-generation Panther Lake client processors (Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 3) using ASML’s EXE High NA EUV technology on the Intel 18A process node.
Crucially, the release notes that specific layers of these processors have been “dual-qualified” on High NA EUV right here in Oregon, with yields matching their existing platforms.
This isn’t just a win for Intel; it is a monumental validation for Hillsboro.
How We Saw the Field: Looking Back at the Gambit Series
To understand why today’s announcement is such a massive victory lap for Intel, Bagger, and the Herald, we have to look back at the trail of breadcrumbs we followed over the last year. While the rest of the world looked at balance sheets, we looked at the physical machinery arriving at Gordon Moore Park.
- April 2025: The Opening Move
In The Hillsboro, Oregon Gambit: Is Intel About to Rewrite the Rules of Chipmaking?, we first introduced Bagger’s theory. While mainstream analysts insisted Intel wouldn’t use High NA EUV until its “14A” node in 2027, Bagger argued that Intel was quietly preparing to deploy this revolutionary tool early on the 18A node to leapfrog TSMC. - October 2025: Connecting the Giants
In Intel’s Big AI Breakthrough Began in Hillsboro, Oregon — The Hillsboro Gambit II, we detailed the arrival of ASML’s massive, 165-ton High NA EUV tool at D1X Mod 3 in Hillsboro. We also broke the news of a secret partnership: Microsoft’s next-gen Maia 2 AI chip would be built on Intel’s 18A process—a massive endorsement of Hillsboro’s engineering. - The Supporting Pieces
We continued tracking the money, the infrastructure, and the politics across the Pacific Northwest and beyond in articles like Intel’s 90-Billion Question and Analysts Tour Intel Chandler Fab 52 Under NDA, building a rock-solid case that the semiconductor center of gravity was shifting back to American soil. - April 2026: The Whispers Confirmed
Just a few months ago, in The Gambit: Whispers from Hillsboro’s Ronler Acres, we noted that Intel’s stock had soared from its $20 lows to $80 a share as the company’s product roadmap began selling out. We reported Bagger’s ultimate prediction: Panther Lake was ramping up on 18A ahead of schedule. Today, ASML’s press release turned those whispers into official global headlines.
Breaking Down the Tech: What is High NA EUV?
For the tech folks, this is a massive milestone. For the average Hillsboro resident, here is what is actually happening inside those giant white buildings off Brookwood Parkway and Century Blvd.
Making a computer chip is like drawing an incredibly detailed, microscopic map using light. For years, chipmakers used Low NA EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) light. But as features on the chips shrank to near-atomic levels, Low NA tools struggled to draw lines sharp enough. Chipmakers had to resort to “multi-patterning”, essentially drawing the same line multiple times with different stencils to get it right. It is slow, complex, and expensive.
High NA EUV is the equivalent of a microscopic Sharpie. It projects a much finer, higher-resolution light pattern. Instead of drawing a layer 40 times, it can do it in less than 10. This dramatically speeds up production times, cuts manufacturing steps, and lowers the cost of making each chip. Today’s news confirms that Intel has successfully tamed this beast of a machine, matching the yields of older technologies while reaping all the speed and efficiency benefits.
What This Means for Hillsboro: Jobs, Real Estate, and Community Stability
When Intel thrives, Hillsboro thrives. But what does a successful “Gambit” actually mean for those of us living, working, raising families, and buying homes in Washington County?
Long-Term Real Estate and Economic Stability
Over the last few years, upwards of 5,000 to 6,000 jobs were lost; our local economy felt the tremors of Intel’s restructuring, which included painful job losses. It raised questions about the housing market in ZIP codes like 97124 and 97123.
Today’s news provides a massive sigh of relief. By dual-qualifying High NA EUV in Oregon, Intel is anchoring its most critical, high-margin, future-proof manufacturing technology right here. This ensures that the Ronler Acres campus remains active and indispensable for decades. For local homeowners, this acts as an economic shield, protecting property values and sustaining local business demand from downtown restaurants to neighborhood contractors.
The Jobs Outlook: Brains Over Brawn
While this news is a home run, Bagger’s analysis reminds us to be realistic about employment numbers. High NA EUV tools are marvels of automation. Because these machines collapse 40 manufacturing steps down to fewer than 10, they inherently require fewer physical “tool touches.”
What does this mean for the local workforce?
- A shift in job types: We may not see a massive, raw-number surge in entry-level assembly or operator jobs to replace the 5,000 lost.
- Higher-value roles: Instead, the focus will be on retaining and hiring highly specialized lithography engineers, data analysts, and advanced maintenance technicians.
- The Silver Lining: While the overall headcount may rise more slowly, the stability of these high-wage positions ensures a highly skilled, high-spending workforce remains rooted in our community.
The Enterprise Horizon: Diamond Rapids
And the story doesn’t end with Panther Lake. As we look ahead, Ronler Acres is currently developing 18A-P, a customized, high-performance version of this node designed for Diamond Rapids, Intel’s next-generation enterprise server chip.
By restructuring how these massive chips handle heat and electrical power, Hillsboro’s engineers are currently building the physical brains that will power the next phase of the global AI revolution.
The Verdict: Hillsboro Leads the Way
When we wrote The Hillsboro Gambit last year, we called it a story of hope for our town. Today, that hope has turned into hard, undeniable reality. The world’s most advanced technology isn’t just being dreamed up in Silicon Valley or manufactured overseas; it is being physically mastered right here in Hillsboro, Oregon.
We cannot open our social media without hearing our leaders in Salem and Portland fretting over the Oregon economy. Fear is present in almost every article and statement made coming from the Governor’s office. And just this week we saw news about our Semiconductor technology employment falling with the future in those industries leaving our State. It does appear that growth in the chip production sector will be unlikely in Oregon. But stability and predictability with the jobs we do have is just as important. Stasis right now is a win. Oregon needs to fix its broken school funding systems, the horrible misuse of the Enterprise Zone tax abatements by Data Centers, and a myriad of other issues. But our natural resources, the quality of life we enjoy, our climate, and the people and companies we have here make us special. All we need to do is keep what we have and support them in any way we smartly can, and Oregon will be right as the rain we so enjoy.
Our community has a lot to be proud of. Once again, for Intel, Ronler Acres team and the ASML machines have saved the day.
