South Korean company Samsung Electronics is heavily dependent on suppliers of specialized equipment in the field of lithography, and one of the leaders in this field is the Dutch ASML. In 2023, the partners announced their intentions to build a joint research center in Hwaseong, but now it has become known that ASML has sold most of the sites allocated for it.
Image Source: Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics has several large factories in Hwaseong that constantly need cutting-edge chip-making equipment. From this point of view, it was the perfect place to build a joint research center with ASML. The plan was to spend 700 million euros on its construction, and last summer ASML agreed to buy six plots of land with a total area of 19,000 square meters for this purpose.
Now ETNews reports that two of the six sites have already been sold, and two more are awaiting a similar fate. What will happen to the remaining two is not specified. On condition of anonymity, company representatives explained that the need to build a joint research center remains. Perhaps a new location will be selected for it. It is possible that it will appear on the campus with Samsung enterprises in the same Hwaseong. Official representatives of ASML did not go into details, but emphasized that the companies continue to cooperate with each other, and rumors about abandoning plans to build a research and development center are not true. Samsung representatives noted that ASML’s decision to sell the land is in no way connected with the activities of the South Korean company.