Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Following a Bloomberg News story that the United States government wants to prevent ASML Holding from ex...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Following a Bloomberg News story that the United States government wants to prevent ASML Holding from exporting equipment to China, the company's shares plummeted on Tuesday. ASML Holding is a major supplier of equipment to semiconductor manufacturers.
According to the article, which cited "people familiar with the situation," Washington would also prohibit the sale of slightly older machines, which would further restrict ASML's ability to export its most sophisticated tools to China.
According to an ASML spokesman, the business is not aware of any policy changes.
The representative stated, "The conversation is not brand-new. We don't want to speculate or address rumours because "no decisions have been taken."
Following the report, ASML's U.S. shares fell 7.2 percent.
Other chip gear manufacturers also suffered losses, with Lam Research down 3.6% and Applied Materials down 2.4%.
After Taiwan and South Korea, China is ASML's third-largest market, accounting for roughly 16 percent of projected sales of 2.1 billion euros in 2021.
The production of lithography systems, which are essential for chipmakers like Intel, TSMC, and Samsung, is virtually monopolised by ASML. Focused laser beams are employed by lithography systems, which can cost hundreds of millions of dollars each, to build the circuitry in computer chips.
Since computer chips are regarded as "dual use" technology with both commercial and military applications, lithography and other semiconductor production equipment must have an export licence.
Since 2019, ASML has not been allowed to sell its most cutting-edge machines, which use "extreme ultraviolet," or EUV, light waves, to Chinese chipmakers by the Dutch government, in accordance with the U.S.
"Deep ultraviolet" (DUV) machines are still sold by ASML to Chinese customers.
DUV lithography is used to produce the vast majority of chips in the world. Limiting their sales to China would be extremely detrimental to China's chip industry and probably make the worldwide shortage of semiconductors worse.
The former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence made the recommendation that the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce press allies to prevent China from gaining access to advanced DUV, EUV, and associated capabilities in 2021.
A total ban on DUV technology, according to Citi analysts, is "very implausible," but additional restrictions for equipment manufacturers may be related to China's escalating foreign policy with Russia or its intrusions into Taiwan.
