“ASML is the most important tech company you’ve never heard of.”
This headline about ASML, a Veldhoven-based Dutch supplier of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and lithography systems, dominated the news in late 2021 and 2022 when the US decided to restrict China from access to important semiconductor supply chains.
Without its extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, it is almost impossible to make advanced processors that go into smartphones, data centres, personal computers, laptops, cars, and much more.
The meteoric rise of the 37-year-old company, which began as a joint venture between Advanced Semiconductor Materials International (ASMI) and Philips, and became independent in 1988, is unlike any seen in the semiconductor industry.