From the outside, it looks like a normal office building with lots of glass and steel, but this factory in the Netherlands is owned by ASML and makes machines that are anything but normal.
In fact, the technology is so advanced and popular that ASML has become the most valuable technology company in Europe.
So, what’s the point?
ASML makes more than just machines; it also makes the machines that make computer chips.
ASML is the only company in the world that has the technology to make computer chips that are the most advanced.
ASML has some of the most strict corporate security in the world when it comes to how its machines work because it has a monopoly.
Still, we were shown around the plant and told what we needed to know.
A silicon wafer is used to build complex patterns of transistors, which are small electrical switches, layer by layer. This is how microchips are made.
Using a lithography system, light is shone through a blueprint of the pattern of these small switches to print them.
The light is shrunk and focused using advanced optics, and the pattern is cut into a photosensitive silicon wafer.
The circuitry of a silicon chip is made up of that pattern. So that chip could end up in a computer, phone, or any other electronic device you can think of.
The most important thing about ASML’s most advanced machines is that they can work on very small scales by making only 13.5 nanometers wide light.
Sander Hofman from ASML compares it to using different-tipped pens: “Because the wavelength is small, you’re using a fine liner to draw lines of integrated circuitry, whereas older machines might use a marker pen.”
Because you can etch such fine circuits into silicon, you can fit more components into it. This means electronic devices can have more processing power and memory without getting bigger.
The machines work in a vacuum because the process of etching a chip can be messed up by something as small as a piece of skin.
When we went to the factory, Bram Matthijssen, a technician, was assembling one of ASML’s newest designs. Mr. Matthijssen works in a place that is one of the cleanest on Earth.
“Sometimes we have to wear gloves over gloves to ensure we don’t leave fingerprints or bring extra dust into the machine.”
He says, “A single fingerprint… can do much damage to the machine.”
The machines themselves are big and hard to understand. Building and shipping one extreme ultraviolet (EUV) machine can take a year.
Last year, the company only sold 50 of its most expensive model and 400 machines.
Last year, the company made 21.2 billion euros ($22.7 billion; £18.9 billion) from these sales and from managing and improving the machines it already had.
The orders they already have lined up are worth twice as much. Because of the increase in sales, the number of employees has grown by a third in the past year.
Wayne Lam, a consultant for the technology research firm CCS Insights, says that developing and perfecting the machines that ASML makes takes years, if not decades.
Since the early 2000s, ASML has been working on its most advanced machines. Unfortunately, this has given other companies in the field a lot of work to do to catch up.
He says, “I’m sure there are competitors in the works, but there isn’t a real competitor to ASML right now.”
Not bad for a company that the BBC once called “relatively obscure.” Mr. Hoffman has put that quote on a hoodie.
Being such an important part of the global electronics industry can be hard.
ASML in the US v. China crossfires
China has wanted to make the most advanced computer chips for a long time. To do this, it needs machines made by ASML.
But since 2019, the US has made it hard for ASML to sell these machines in China.
Joris Teer, a strategic analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, says the US wants to stop China from catching up in chip technology.
He said that the US used to want to be ahead of its rivals by a couple of generations, but now it wants to be ahead by as much as possible. This can also mean you want to push your rivals back as far as possible.
There have been rumors that the Dutch and US governments have reached a deal about ASML exports, but the details have yet to be made public.
Read Also: ASML accuses staff of data theft
In a statement about the news, ASML said that any restrictions would need to be worked on for a long time before they could be put into law.
Peter Wennink, the CEO of ASML, thinks that export restrictions will be fine for his business in the long run.
