It is home to ASML, the world’s sole manufacturer of the most advanced equipment critical to modern chipmaking. If chips make the world go round, ASML may be the closest the multi-trillion-dollar global tech industry has to a linchpin. ASML is not the only maker of photolithographic machines, which use light to etch integrated circuits onto silicon wafers. It competes with Canon and Nikon of Japan. But the Dutch firm’s market share has nearly doubled, to 62%, since 2005.
And it alone has harnessed “extreme ultraviolet” (EUV) light, with wavelengths of just 13.5 nanometres (billionths of a metre). Shorter wavelengths allow the etching of smaller components—vital for chipmakers striving to keep pace with Moore’s Law, which posits that the number of components that can be squeezed into a given area of silicon doubles roughly every two years.
The world’s three leading chipmakers—Intel in America, Samsung in South Korea and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—have become as reliant on ASML’s wares as the rest of the technology industry is on theirs. With neither Canon nor Nikon pursuing EUV technology, investors have concluded that ASML will enjoy its nanoscopic monopoly for a while.
