Chip, the Netherlands prepares new restrictions for Asml in China
Under pressure from the United States, it appears that the Netherlands will prevent ASML from providing assistance and maintenance services to its microchip machinery in China. A move that would further complicate Beijing's efforts for technological progress. All the details
The Netherlands is preparing to introduce new restrictions on Asml, a semiconductor manufacturing machinery company, relating to economic relations with China. Specifically – Bloomberg wrote – Dick Schoof's new government will probably not renew the licenses that allow Asml to provide maintenance services and spare parts to Chinese customers of its devices; the licenses in question will expire at the end of 2024.
The restrictions will mainly affect machines for deep ultraviolet (or DUV) lithography, a technology that allows microchips to be made on small scales and which is central to China's technological development plans.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
Asml's chipmaking machines are the most advanced in the world and are sold together with assistance and maintenance guarantees, which are essential to keep them functioning: in the absence of technical support, in fact, some of these devices may no longer be usable already in the first weeks of 2025.
AMERICAN PRESSURES
It seems that the Dutch government's decision was also taken following pressure received from the United States, which for years has been pursuing a strategy of export controls to prevent China from accessing semiconductors and advanced machinery. Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands also participate in this commercial isolation strategy, all nations in which very important companies in the global chipmaking supply chain are based. As revealed in recent weeks by Reuters and Bloomberg , the United States had raised the possibility of imposing a particularly restrictive measure on the business of Dutch, Japanese and South Korean companies – the so-called foreign direct product rule , which applies to all goods and services containing American technology, regardless of the country of production – to convince allied governments to align themselves more closely against China.
IS SCHOOF MORE ANTI-CHINESE THAN RUTTE?
Bloomberg explains that, under Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the Netherlands had resisted US pressure to impose restrictions on chip machine support services, arguing that time was needed to assess the impact of a policy measure. type. Schoof's new government, however, appears to be even more skeptical of China, at least in matters involving national security .
WHAT CHANGES FOR ASML, WHAT CHANGES FOR CHINA
Preventing Asml from offering assistance services on machinery sold in China puts the company in the same conditions to which its US competitors, such as Applied Materials, are already subjected.
For China, however, the inability to maintain its DUV machinery will further complicate plans to develop advanced chipmaking capabilities: the country is several technological generations behind the United States or Taiwan, a situation that makes it dependent on foreign countries and which could limit its progress in artificial intelligence. China, moreover, has never been able to purchase ASML's most cutting-edge machines, those for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV).
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/paesi-bassi-limitazioni-asml-cina/ on Fri, 30 Aug 2024 09:22:38 +0000.