. Attempts to block China from the global supply chain has created concern that the country will rush to develop its own version of ASML, threatening the Dutch company’s outsized influence over the semiconductor market.
Thanks to the gamble ASML took in the 1990s to pursue the development of EUV technology, which uses tiny rays of light to carve patterns on the silicon pieces that form semiconductor chips, the company’s dominance in this area is currently unchallenged. ASML estimates its most advanced technology is so complex, it would take at least 15 years for others to replicate.
“Several of the companies that were competitive [in the 1990s] decided not to take the risk investing in EUV because it seemed like it would be so difficult, so expensive and possibly never work,” says Chris Miller, assistant professor of international history at Tufts University, who is writing a book on the geopolitical history of the computer chip. As a result of that bet, ASML’s valuation has swollen to over $300 billion and its share price has more than doubled since the start of 2020.
But a political maelstrom could hit ASML’s growth plans. The company’s breakthrough in EUVs coincided with another event: Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House. In 2018, when ASML received an order for an EUV machine from a Chinese customer,
Technically, no advanced tech is supposed to go to China, including Intel processors