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> However they seem to have missed the boat on EUV tech. Licensing: > To address the challenge of EUV lithography, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National
by throw0101c 3y ago
> However they seem to have missed the boat on EUV tech.
Licensing:
> To address the challenge of EUV lithography, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories were funded in the 1990s to perform basic research into the technical obstacles. The results of this successful effort were disseminated via a public/private partnership Cooperative R&D Agreement (CRADA) with the invention and rights wholly owned by the US government, but licensed and distributed under approval by DOE and Congress.[8] The CRADA consisted of a consortium of private companies and the Labs, manifested as an entity called the Extreme Ultraviolet Limited Liability Company (EUV LLC).[9]
> Intel, Canon, and Nikon (leaders in the field at the time), as well as the Dutch company ASML and Silicon Valley Group (SVG) all sought licensing. Congress denied the Japanese companies the necessary permission as they were perceived as strong technical competitors at the time, and should not benefit from taxpayer-funded research at the expense of American companies.[10] In 2001 SVG was acquired by ASML, leaving ASML as the sole benefactor of the critical technology.[11]
[…]
> This made the once small company ASML the world leader in the production of scanners and monopolist in this cutting edge technology and resulted in a record turnover of 18.6 billion € in 2021, dwarfing their competitors Canon and Nikon who were denied IP access. […]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithography#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithograph...
- alephnerd 3y agoYep! Specifically, Antitrust (as is mentioned). Canon and Nikon were leaders in lithography at the time, and ASML/Philips were a laggard 3rd.
- Andrex 3y agoFirst I've heard of this, that's absolutely awful.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- insane_dreamer 3y agoso they decided foreign technical competitors should not benefit from US taxpayer-funded research (makes sense) but then allowed ASML to buy SVG and thereby monopolizing (quite literally) this most critical of technologies? idiots.
- p1esk 3y agoDid Intel get the license?
- insane_dreamer 3y agoIntel's focus was chip design and manufacturing, not tooling; it took a long time (and money) for ASML to develop its cutting-edge EUV tech. Besides SVG, ASML also bought other key US EUV component developers like Cymer (lasers) and HMI.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoThe first part doesn’t make sense at all. A huge percentage of american taxpayer funded research is released openly to the world. It only makes sense in using it to create the latter monopoly, though, I guess showing where incentives really lie.
- user_7832 3y agoI thought the US favored companies over individuals, but evidently this isn't limited to US based corps.
- scrubs 3y agoThanks for that background. I thought the US was a total 0 on know how when it came to sub 7mm chips.