This is how the creator of the most complex machine on the planet supports the US pressure

In 2022 sales of ASML In China they amounted to 2.9 billion euros, which represented 13.8% of its annual sales. At that time Taiwan was a more important market for this company than China. In fact, in 2023 the clients of the island bought this manufacturer lithography equipment For a total value of 8,100 million euros, while its Chinese clients disbursed 7.3 billion euros. And, curiously, in 2024 China consolidated as the largest market for ASML with total sales of 10.2 billion euros.

This company of the Netherlands cannot sell its most advanced equipment to its Chinese clients, such as the machines of extreme ultraviolet lithography (UVE) or deep ultraviolet (UVP), but at the moment you can give them the solutions that allow producing chips with mature integration technologies. These are the semiconductors that are mostly used in cars, appliances or electronic devices, among other products, and usually occur in nodes of 28 nm or less advanced.

ASML needs China. And China still needs Asml

Christophe Fouquet, the general director of ASML, has a huge challenge ahead. Like his predecessor at the head of this Dutch company, Peter Wennink, he has the obligation to defend the interests of his company. And currently the tension held by the US and China does not make it easy. The sanctions that They have deployed US and the Netherlands They prevent Asml selling Your most advanced lithography teams To its Chinese clients. And neither can some maintenance and after -sales services services provide.

In the Netherlands 2024 will be remembered as the year in which the strap between ASML and the Dutch government reached its maximum expression. Christophe Fouquet He is convinced about what US will continue to put pressure on its partners to even more harden the sanctions that seek to stop the development of the Chinese industry of the integrated circuits. In fact, according to the British weekly The Economistthis executive argues that European politicians and regulators should do more to help their company.

Anyway, one of the figures in which we have repaired a few lines above gives us a very accurate clue about how ASML is dealing with prohibitions from the US and endorsed by the Netherlands government that could greatly degrade their business. As we have seen, in 2024 China was consolidated as its largest market with total sales of 10,200 million euros. This success is because Chinese manufacturers of integrated circuits have bought A ASML many suitable photolithography equipment to produce mature semiconductors.

This Dutch company has much more advanced chips manufacturing machines, such as the UVE and UVP lithography equipment that I have mentioned a few lines above. And also The very complex High Opening Machine which has been designed to optimize the production of integrated circuits Below the 2 nm. As we have seen, ASML cannot deliver these teams to its Chinese clients, but, and this is a very important fact, has the effective monopoly of Uve and Uve Machines of Haute Opening. No other company has the necessary resources to produce such complex equipment.

Currently TSMC, Intel, Samsung, Globalfoundries, Micron Technology and Sk Hynix are well building new chips manufacturing plants, they are well expanding some of those they have in operation. In any case, they all have something in common: they are buying the UVE and UVP equipment of ASML. And, in addition, TSMC, Intel and Samsung presumably will acquire for the next three years a large number of UVE Machines of Haute Opening.

It is evident that even in the complicated current situation it is difficult to lie to ASML. For now Your business in China enduresand will continue to do it at least until the moment when Chinese lithography manufacturers have their own UVE machines. And outside China Asml has no competition if we stick to its Porpholio of UVE machines. This is your true strength.

Image | ASML

More information | The New York Times

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