How One Dutch Company is Controlling China and Changing the World

people to pinpoint the center of the digital economy and many will save Silicon Valley populated by Apple Tesla Google and too many big companies to count Others May think at the area around Seattle where Amazon and Microsoft are based some good suggestion gen China's technology Hub or Samsung Town Seoul yet not even closer what if I told you that the entire world economy is spaced around a fairly modest town with a population of 45 and 500. once a small town in the Netherlands walted Hoven has grown into a bustling Hub of innovation and Technology the town's journey to become a technological Powerhouse began with the establishment of Phillips a multinational conglomerate in the 1920s today another company is playing a crucial role in changing the world or rather all other tech companies in the world depend on it with a market value of around 350 billion dollars Dutch headquarters asml is a little known tech company that's set to keep on growing going in line with the insatiable demand for semiconductors the 37 year old company which is over 31 000 staff is the only firm in the world capable of making the highly complex machines that are needed to manufacture the most advanced chips these machines which cost approximately 140 million dollars each shine exceptionally narrow beams of light into Silicon Valley Wafers that have been treated with photoresist chemicals intricate patterns are created on the wafer where the light comes into contact with the chemicals which are carefully laid out beforehand this process which leads to the formation of all important transistors is known as lithography the machines themselves are called Extreme ultraviolet lithography machines or eub machines asmrs is the accuracy of euv lithography is like shooting a laser gun from the Moon to hit a coin on the planet Earth and the asml UV machines are built as seven different sub modules and transporting finished machine takes 20 trucks and three full loaded 747 airplanes because of this Machinery asml gains enormous profit and as of now asml stock prices are clearly higher even than Intel a semiconductor is a substance that controls the flow of electricity and electronic devices and one of its most popular uses is within the microchips used in Computing components given the ongoing chip war between the US and China the Netherlands has found itself caught in the middle of mounting political tensions between the two countries and the Dutch government's decision to ramp up restrictions on the exportation of its industry-leading chip technology to China is a sure sign the country has chosen to side with the US in cutting bitching off from the microchip supply chain however asml was selling duv machines to China but not euv machines duv lithography is the previous generation of euv Photography all Technologies can be used to design chips but UV is far more advanced so it helps create tiny chips like 4 NM or lower meanwhile Dov machines can make chips around 7 nms which is enormous compared to 4 NM processors even though duv is older technology mainland China was a more prominent customer of asml but recently Western countries imposed many regulations on asml Banning sales to China including duv equipment the main reason could be to delay China in producing more advanced technology than asml also asml has not sold at least one UV machine to China China has expressed disappointment that the Netherlands are allowing political relationships to affect basic economic trade the U.S main concern is that if China has access to asml state-of-the-art chip technology they would be able to start manufacturing the highest quality semiconductors in the world semiconductors of this standard would enable the development of Highly powerful military and artificial intelligence technology last year the United States stepped up its competition with China in the semiconductor industry in August the Biden Administration signed the chips in science act the 52.7 billion dollar industrial policy that aims to bolster research enhance supply chain resiliency and Revitalize semiconductor production in the United States however China plans to have 31 new Chips factories in place by 2024. this could be seen as China seeking more manufacturing Independence eliminating Reliance on overseas sources which may become problematic if International political tensions continue to rise all the topics such as microchip Manufacturing in China may not seem overly relevant to anyone outside of the competing countries in question experts warn that the losses associated with curbing experts to China could lead to the destabilization of the entire microchip supply chain the US and the Netherlands moves to cut China off from Advanced chip technology May unintentionally encourage the country to produce more microchips domestically or possibly even take control of taiwan's world-leading semiconductor industry which could in turn result in China taking over the microchip supply chain in the long run possibly even causing a global recession foreign

Channel: WittyMatter

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Id: _OwPNdVFOdA

Length: 5min 22sec (322 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 24 2023