Restrictions anticipated to have an effect on Dutch-based ASML, Europe’s largest semiconductor tech firm, come after intense stress from Washington to chop Chinese entry to know-how.
(AP Archive)
The Dutch authorities has introduced plans for brand spanking new export restrictions on know-how to make laptop chips, following stress from the United States to limit Chinese entry to the know-how.
“The government has come to the conclusion that it is necessary for international and national security to expand the existing export control of specific semiconductor production equipment,” Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher stated in a letter to parliament on Wednesday.
The announcement comes lower than two months after Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited President Joe Biden on the White House and mentioned the problem.
The Netherlands, Europe’s premier maker of the machines that assist manufacture microchips, has been pushed to impose curbs just like these introduced by Washington final 12 months.
The curbs are anticipated to have an effect on Dutch-based ASML, Europe’s largest semiconductor tech firm.
The Dutch authorities didn’t point out the agency instantly, however stated the restrictions would goal Deep Ultraviolet (DUV) lithography, a method for printing tiny circuits on microchips wherein ASML specialises.
The purpose of the export controls was to forestall army use, and to guard the Netherlands’ “unique and leading position” in such applied sciences, the federal government stated.
ASML additionally makes the much more subtle Extreme Ultraviolet (EU) machines, however these are already topic to export curbs beneath a pact on twin civilian-military tech signed by some 40 international locations together with the United States and the Netherlands.
The authorities stated it will publish the brand new laws “before the summer.”
ASML’s response
The anticipated motion is the most recent effort by the White House to focus on China’s know-how sectors at a time of more and more fraught relations between the world’s two largest economies.
In a press release revealed on its web site, ASML stated that the brand new restrictions will apply to its “most advanced deposition and immersion lithography tools.”
“Due to these upcoming regulations, ASML will need to apply for export licences for shipment of the most advanced immersion DUV systems,” the corporate stated, including that it “will take time for these controls to be translated into legislation and take effect.”
ASML added, “Based on today’s announcement, our expectation of the Dutch government’s licensing policy, and the current market situation, we do not expect these measures to have a material effect on our financial outlook” for 2023.
ASML additionally stated it had not but obtained “any additional information about the exact definition” of “most advanced” methods.
But the tech firm urged governments in January to be “careful” because it introduced a drop in income amid the rising chip warfare between Beijing and Washington.
“We need to be careful that instruments that are well-meant don’t come to a consequence that we all feel sorry about,” ASML’s chief government Peter Wennink stated on the time.
Beijing on Tuesday lashed out on the United States, accusing Biden’s administration of stoking tensions together with hitting China with a raft of restrictions on know-how.
Source: TRTWorld and companies
Source: www.trtworld.com
