ASML says chip makers face a two year shortage of key machinery

DutchNews, March 21, 2022 

An ASML cleanroom where a euv machine is being assembled. Photo: ASML 

Semiconductor makers face a two-year shortage of critical equipment because Dutch chip machinery maker ASML is unable to meet demand fast enough, the company’s chief executive Peter Wennink has told the Financial Times. 

ASML, based in Veldhoven, is a key player in the global chip industry, producing machines which Intel, Samsung and TSMC all use to make advanced semiconductors. The company also has a monopoly in the field of EUV, or extreme ultra violet, based lithography machines.

‘Next year and the year after there will be shortages,’ Wennink told the paper. ‘We’re going to ship more machines this year than last year and . . . more machines next year than this year. But it will not be enough if we look at the demand curve. We really need to step up our capacity significantly more than 50%. That will take time.’ 

The FT said Wennink’s comments come as the semiconductor industry is speeding up investment in new production to meet a global shortage of chips, and that analysts expect the market to double to $1 tn by 2030.

US ambassador confirms pressure to refuse ASML export licence for China

DutchNews, January 17, 2020 

An ASML cleanroom where a euv machine is being assembled. Photo: ASML

The US ambassador to the Netherlands has confirmed earlier reports that the United States wants to discourage the export of chip technology to China, the Financieele Dagblad said on Friday. 

Sources had told the paper earlier that the US was putting pressure on the Dutch government to refuse an export licence to chip machinery maker ASML.

‘We have made it very clear to the Dutch,’ the paper quotes Pete Hoestra as saying. ‘We believe that this is extremely sensitive technology which does not belong in certain places.’ 

ASML has been waiting since June 2019 for an export licence to send a next-generation chip maker to China, which uses technology based on extreme ultraviolet (euv) wavelengths. 

The request is still being dealt with by the foreign affairs ministry. However, behind the scenes, the FD says, the US has been subjecting the Netherlands to ‘heavy political pressure’ to refuse the licence. 

Earlier this week, China’s ambassador to the Netherlands said in an interview with the FD that China did not want The Hague to bow to US pressure.

‘We are concerned that the Netherlands is allowing our trading relationship to become politicised,’ Xu Hong is quoted as saying. ‘If this continues, it will ultimately have a negative influence on our bilateral relationship.’ 

And Reuters said that White House officials shared a classified intelligence report with the Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte which highlighted the potential repercussions of China acquiring ASML’s technology. 

The paper said the stakes are high because ASML is counting on realising billions of euros worth of sales in China through the use of euv technology. 

The technology falls under an international treaty, the Wassenaar Arrangement, which was signed by both countries and which stipulates that a licence is necessary because euv technology can also be used for military purposes.

Coalition MPs say Huawei must be kept out of 5G network roll-out

DutchNews, April 12, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Two of the four Dutch coalition parties have said they do not want Chinese telecoms company Huawei to be involved in rolling out 5G networks in the Netherlands, following the FD’s revelations about industrial espionage at ASML, the Financieele Dagblad said on Friday. 

GroenLinks, the biggest Dutch opposition said in February that Huawei should be excluded from the tender process because of security fears. 

‘It is very simple,’ VVD MP Wybren van Haga told the paper. ‘If a company does not keep to the rules, you don’t play with them. China clearly does not respect the international rules of trade and has no respect for the intellectual property rights of western tech companies.’ 

The CDA is also opposed to Chinese involvement in the project. 

On Thursday, the Financieele Dagblad said Chinese spies have stolen a large number of company secrets from chip machinery maker ASML. 

The spies were highly placed R&D workers who were able to get away with source codes, software, price strategies and secret user manuals, the paper said. It bases the claims on its own research and Californian court documents. 

The scandal comes at a sensitive time for the government, which is currently trying to draw up a formal strategy to deal with Chinese economic interests. 

Earlier this month, the AIVD security service warned about the risks of using Chinese equipment for crucial infrastructure and said digital attacks and espionage by countries such as China, Iran and Russia pose a real threat. 

In the US Huawei has been accused of espionage on behalf of the Chinese authorities and the US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, told Trouw earlier this year that the company should be kept out of the Dutch market. ‘This is very, very important to us,’ Hoekstra is quoted as saying.

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Chinese spies steal secrets from Dutch chip maker ASML: FD

Chinese spies steal secrets from Dutch chip maker ASML: FD

DutchNews, April 11, 2019

Photo: ASML

Chinese spies have stolen a large number of company secrets from chip machinery maker ASML, the Financieele Dagblad said on Thursday. 

The spies were highly placed R&D workers who had indirect ties to the Chinese ministry of science and technology and were able to get away with source codes, software, price strategies and secret user manuals, the paper said. It bases the claims on its own research and Californian court documents. 

The paper says the theft took place at the Dutch firm’s operations in San Jose in the US and was orchestrated by competitor XTAL, which was established by former ASML workers in 2014. A year later XTAL was able to lure away ASML clients such as Samsung. 

The FD research shows that XTAL’s Chinese parent company Dongfang Jingyuan has ties to the Chinese ministry and had been given subsidies for a project aimed at boosting China’s position in the chip machinery market. ASML is currently world leader. 

The paper points out that the scandal comes at a sensitive time for the government, which is currently trying to draw up a formal strategy to deal with Chinese economic interests. 

Earlier this month, the AIVD security service warned about the risks of using Chinese equipment for crucial infrastructure and said digital attacks and espionage by countries such as China, Iran and Russia pose a real threat. 

However, the FD says, China is an important market for ASML and has enormous growth potential.  Nevertheless, senior company officials are concerned about the Chinese approach to intellectual property, the paper said. 

Neither XTAL or Dongfang Jingyuan were willing to comment on the claims, the FD said. 

At the end of 2018, a court in California ordered XTAL to pay $233m in damages to ASML after ASML took the company to court for the ‘misappropriation of trade secrets’. The ruling has been low profile until now, the paper said.

Chip machinery maker ASML wins first order from China

DutchNews, May 16, 2018

Photo: ASML 

Chipmachine marker ASML of Veldhoven has won its first-ever order from China, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Wednesday. 

The paper said Chinese Semiconductor Manufacturing International has ordered a $120m extreme ultraviolet lithography machine from ASML which never identifies its customers. Citing Nikkei Asian Review the FD said this is the latest in a series of orders for the EUV machines from ASML. 

Taiwan-based TSMC has ordered eight of the EUV machines, Samsung six and Intel three while GlobalFoundries of the US has ordered one. At the presentation of first-quarter figures in April, ASML said it had booked orders for 20 of the machines. 

EUV technology allows the industry to continue to print smaller features onto ever-more complex chips. It is carried out in a vacuum using a plasma to produce EUV light using highly sophisticated mirrors instead of lenses to project the circuit patterns onto silicon wafers. 

Today’s silicon chips have features as small as 40 nanometers – less than a few hundred atoms across – and ASML says EUV lithography tools will be used to print even smaller 

Using EUV to print transistors this small is equivalent to printing an image the size of a human eye on the surface of the earth from a space shuttle . . . and then printing another image on top of the first one with perfect alignment, the company says.