In April of this year, Christophe Fouquet took over the leadership of the Dutch company ASML, which supplies most of the world’s chip manufacturers with its lithography scanners, and until now he has made little public appearances outside of quarterly reporting events. In an interview with NRC, he admitted that US sanctions could increase China’s gap in the semiconductor industry by 10-15 years.
Image Source: ASML
«By banning EUV exports to China, we could be ten or fifteen years behind the West. This really has an effect,” admitted the head of ASML. American politicians insist that this company stop servicing its equipment operated in China. The Dutch government has not yet formed its position on this issue, but ASML management believes that it is better to maintain control over its Chinese equipment. If Chinese companies start servicing it themselves, Fouquet said, it risks leaking ASML’s trade secrets. The head of the company believes that future US President Donald Trump will be imbued with this logic and support the manufacturer’s point of view.
Speaking about the development of the semiconductor industry as a whole, Fouquet believes that it is good for technical progress in this area when there are several large players in the market. “I have no doubt that Samsung will recover. And from a competitive point of view, it would be great to see Intel prosper again, but if you make a lot of mistakes, it will be very difficult to establish a business,” the head of ASML commented on the failures of these chip manufacturers. He added that restoring Intel’s business is strategically important for the United States, since this is the only way for the country to maintain its own production of advanced chips.
When asked about the tendency of American authorities to underestimate the scale of problems in the semiconductor industry, Fouquet replied that such an attitude is common to everyone. To successfully launch a chip production enterprise, money alone will not be enough. You need to invest in research, learn and try something new. Even if not the first time, then from the second or third it starts to work. Such efforts sometimes take years, as the head of ASML summarized.