Peter Wennink, the CEO of ASML, is unusually active most days. Last week he confirmed that his company, the only one in the world capable of manufacturing extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment, will deliver one of its clients. before the end of this year the first high-aperture UVE lithography equipment (EUV High-NA by its acronym in English). This announcement is important because this machine will allow the production of 2nm chips, and even more advanced lithography.
ASML’s position is currently very precarious. For this company from the Netherlands, 2023 is a good year. According to its forecasts, its net sales will grow by at least 25% compared to those obtained in 2022, and to a certain extent these good results are supported by its performance in the Chinese market. However, ASML cannot sell all its products to companies in this Asian country. And at the beginning of last March, the Government of the Netherlands approved new sanctions at the request of the United States limiting its business with the country led by Xi Jinping.
The general director of ASML defends that this is not the right way
ASML is currently prohibited from selling its UVE lithography equipment and deep ultraviolet (UVP) machines to Chinese companies. And in the future, it certainly won’t sell them high-aperture UVE equipment, which the most sophisticated and expensive which it has (each of them will cost approximately 300 million dollars, double the amount of the first generation SVU team). The company led by Peter Wennink is doing everything possible to preserve its business in China, but it is not easy for it. This is why this executive is speaking out.
Peter Wennink did not miss the opportunity to strengthen his speech by supporting it on one of the most controversial issues of recent days.
In a clear discussion of the strategy used by the US and its allies, Wennink defended in a recent interview on a Dutch television program. News time that China’s current policy of total isolation is not feasible. And no, according to this businessman, because this is the reason for the Chinese Government to make a great effort to develop its capacity for innovation, increase competitiveness from a technological point of view and be independent of technologies from abroad.
It is obvious that Peter Wennink above all defends the commercial interests of his company, so he did not miss the opportunity to strengthen his speech by supporting it in one of the most controversial issues of recent days: the launch of Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro smartphone, equipped with the Kirin 9000S SoC. Maybe this chip It is manufactured by SMIC uses its second generation 7nm integration technology and implements 5G connectivity.
The US Government maintains that China should not have the capacity to develop this processor under the pressure of sanctions, leading the Administration led by Joe Biden to initiate an investigation. However, like other experts, Wennink suggested that the SoC developed by Huawei and SMIC is the result of the effort made by China to maintain the technological development and protect it from the attacks of the alliance that led by the US. However, ASML is subject to the decisions of the Government of the Netherlands and at the moment there is no indication that the strategy of the Administration of Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Central European state, will change its course in the slightest.
