An ASML icon is being shown on a circuit board, together with the flags of the U.S.A. and China, in this image illustration taken in Brussels, Belgium, on January 4, 2024.
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Fears that ASML’s computer system chip devices will be utilized for Chinese military ends underlie current choices to reject the business export licences, the Dutch trade minister stated in responses to concerns from parliament.
Netherlands- based ASML, Europe’s biggest tech company, controls the world market for lithography systems, required by computer system chip makers to assist produce circuitry.
“China focuses on foreign expertise, including Dutch expertise in the field of lithography, to promote self-sufficiency in its military-technical development,” Trade Minister Geoffrey van Leeuwen composed in aFeb 5 note, seen by Reuters.
Van Leeuwen stated that ASML tools are utilized to make sophisticated semiconductors that can enter into “high-value weapons systems and weapons of mass destruction” and the Dutch federal government concentrates on “the risk of undesirable end use” when examining export licensing choices.
Under pressure from the United States, the Dutch federal government in 2015 presented a licensing requirement for ASML’s mid-range DUV makers. The business’s most sophisticated tools have actually never ever been offered in China.
The concerns positioned by legislator Femke Zeedijk of the reformist NSC celebration asked why the federal government at first given, then rapidly withdrawed, a license for ASML to export numerous tools to concealed consumers inChina The business has actually offered numerous countless euros worth of such tools to Chinese consumers in the last few years.
Van Leeuwen’s responses evaded that concern, including that “several licences for the export to China of advanced semiconductor equipment have been granted” because the licensing requirement was presented inSeptember It stated it prepares for around 20 such demands in overall this year, without defining the number of will originate from China.
According to projections by market group SEMI, around 18 Chinese chip plants will come online this year, more than in any other geographical area. Many Chinese chipmakers are concentrating on structure older generations of chips and utilizing devices that does not fall under export control policies.
Some of Zeedijk’s concerns, such as whether the Netherlands had actually withdrawed the licenses at the demand of the U.S. federal government, went unanswered.
“I’m not saying that there are no security issues or that this decision was wrong, but I would like to be better informed,” Zeedijk informed Reuters on Monday.
“The perception is also that besides the security risk, that there are also economic reasons behind it.”
ASML validated on New Year’s Day the Dutch federal government had actually withdrawed a licence, following a report by Bloomberg News.
The resulting cancellations did not effect ASML’s fourth-quarter revenues, however the Deep Ultraviolet tools in concern expense around $60 million each and would be a fundamental part of consumer strategies.
In January, ASML stated it anticipates sales to China will stay “solid” in 2024 after an extraordinary2023 The business stated it does not anticipate to deliver any of its NXT: 2000 i or advanced tools to China under the Dutch licensing routine, which it will not have the ability to export its NXT: 1970 and NXT: 1980 i line of product to “a handful” of Chinese plants, due to U.S. constraints.
