Electronics

Recently, U.S. sources familiar with the matter revealed that the United States is pressuring the Dutch government to ask the country’s semiconductor manufacturer ASML to ban the export of mainstream technology needed to produce a large number of chips around the world to China. Bloomberg pointed out that the United States is expanding its efforts to contain China's rise.

The restrictions Washington has asked the Netherlands to implement will expand existing restrictions on the sale of state-of-the-art equipment to China, the report said, in a move aimed at preventing China from becoming the world's leading chip producer. If the Netherlands agrees to the U.S. request, it will greatly expand the scope and category of chip manufacturing equipment currently prohibited from being sold to China, which may affect Chinese chip manufacturers.

U.S. officials are lobbying the Dutch government to bar ASML from selling some of its older deep ultraviolet lithography machines, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. These machines are a generation behind the state-of-the-art, but are still the most commonly used devices for making some of the less advanced chips needed in cars, phones, computers and even robots.

The question was raised during U.S. Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves' visit to the Netherlands and Belgium in late May and early June to discuss supply chain issues, the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions were private. name. During that trip, Graves also visited ASML's headquarters in the Dutch city of Feldhofen and met with the company's chief executive, Peter Wennink.

People familiar with the matter pointed out that the Dutch government has so far not agreed to impose any additional restrictions on ASML's exports to China, arguing that if the measures requested by the United States are implemented, it may damage the Dutch trade relationship with China. Currently, ASML has been unable to ship its state-of-the-art extreme ultraviolet lithography machine (EUV), which sells for about 160 million euros each, to China due to its inability to obtain an export license from the Dutch government.