U.S. fears ASML chip tool reached China - 朝日新聞

The U.S. government has expressed serious concerns over the potential flow of ASML's advanced EUV lithography machines to China, violating U.S.-led export restrictions. According to Bloomberg, U.S. Co... Read original →

U.S. anxiety over potential ASML EUV shipments to China reveals the semiconductor supply chain’s irreversible politicization. Even if ASML denies violations, the machines’ reliance on continuous vendor support makes unauthorized transfers technically implausible—yet Washington is now extending export controls beyond hardware to encompass service ecosystems and tacit knowledge flows. China’s nascent EUV prototype, though years from production, has already spurred tighter U.S.-Dutch-Japanese coordination, pressuring foundries like TSMC and Samsung to reassess capacity allocation across Taiwan, China and mainland China. Over the next 12–24 months, advanced non-EUV tools (e.g., High-NA DUV) will become the new battleground, while Chinese equipment makers accelerate substitution in mature nodes (>28nm). The industry is fracturing into two parallel tech stacks: one U.S.-aligned with stringent security vetting, the other China-driven toward self-reliance. This bifurcation inflates global compliance costs and delays sub-3nm commercialization.