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ASML just makes the steppers. The EUV secret sauce is made by Cymer in the US and uses US R&D licensed of Sandia Labs. US can always retract the EUV license and

ASML just makes the steppers. The EUV secret sauce is made by Cymer in the US and uses US R&D licensed of Sandia Labs. US can always retract the EUV license and sell the Cymer light sources to Canon or Nikon if they wish. ASML has no EU golden goose of its own that's why it has to obey US rules and policies.

lossolo 1y ago
> US can always retract the EUV license and sell the Cymer light sources to Canon or Nikon if they wish Then why are they not doing it? Isn't it in the national interest? Why not create a US company that makes EUV machines like ASML does? Why is there only one company in the world capable of doing it if they are "just steppers"? btw what is used now in EUV machines are step and scan scanners and ASML builds the whole EUV scanner system (stages, metrology, controls, system integration). Scanners replaced steppers for leading edge nodes. Oh and Cymer is owned by ASML from 2013, so it’s ASML's own US light source business working with TRUMPF (Germany) for the CO2 drive lasers.
- blargthorwars 1y ago
  >Then why are they not doing it? Because ASMR is doing fine by keeping its stuff out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >Why not create a US company that makes EUV machines like ASML does? They had a stepper manufacturer, Silicon Valley Group (SVG), and ASML bought it, that's how ASML got the EUV license from the US.
  - lossolo 1y ago
    SVG didn’t hand ASML a magic EUV license. ASML bought SVG lithography two decades ago to expand in dry/immersion optical litho and US market access. EUV matured later. SVG had momentum in DUV and still couldn't sustain at 193nm while EUV is an order of magnitude more complex. ASML builds the whole scanner and owns the integration IP that makes the parts actually produce yield at scale. The light source matters but without ASML's stages, metrology, optics integration, contamination control, control software etc etc you've got a science project instead of a tool a fab can run. ASML won because the integration problem beat almost everyone else.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >SVG didn’t hand ASML a magic EUV license. I never said that. What I meant was that once ASML acquired SVG, it also become a US-based operation, which gave them the leverage over Canon and Nikon when acquiring a EUV license from the US gov as it was now also a US company, not just a Dutch one.
      - lossolo 1y ago
        > I never said that. Reading your first comment in full, it seems like you actually did, at least that's the impression I got from the wording you used. Then you toned it down and didn’t address the other arguments. What I meant is that simply giving a license to company Y is not the same as being capable of producing the EUV machines that ASML produces. It's similar to TSMC, anyone can buy an ASML machine, but there is only one TSMC, because it's not just about the machine and not just about the light source.
0_____0 1y ago
Cymer is now a business unit of ASML. I can't immediately find reference to them licensing from Sandia, although I do see a mention of a collaboration with LLNL. How'd you work this out and can you link a resource or publication?
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >Cymer is now a business unit of ASML. Operating on US soil, in US jurisdiction under US laws.
  - porridgeraisin 1y ago
    And it's a JV with DoE meaning all the usual security rules and in practice the dutch are completely firewalled from everything, they don't even have access to the EUV tech.

lossolo 1y ago

> US can always retract the EUV license and sell the Cymer light sources to Canon or Nikon if they wish Then why are they not doing it? Isn't it in the national interest? Why not create a US company that makes EUV machines like ASML does? Why is there only one company in the world capable of doing it if they are "just steppers"? btw what is used now in EUV machines are step and scan scanners and ASML builds the whole EUV scanner system (stages, metrology, controls, system integration). Scanners replaced steppers for leading edge nodes. Oh and Cymer is owned by ASML from 2013, so it’s ASML's own US light source business working with TRUMPF (Germany) for the CO2 drive lasers.

blargthorwars 1y ago
>Then why are they not doing it? Because ASMR is doing fine by keeping its stuff out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>Why not create a US company that makes EUV machines like ASML does? They had a stepper manufacturer, Silicon Valley Group (SVG), and ASML bought it, that's how ASML got the EUV license from the US.
- lossolo 1y ago
  SVG didn’t hand ASML a magic EUV license. ASML bought SVG lithography two decades ago to expand in dry/immersion optical litho and US market access. EUV matured later. SVG had momentum in DUV and still couldn't sustain at 193nm while EUV is an order of magnitude more complex. ASML builds the whole scanner and owns the integration IP that makes the parts actually produce yield at scale. The light source matters but without ASML's stages, metrology, optics integration, contamination control, control software etc etc you've got a science project instead of a tool a fab can run. ASML won because the integration problem beat almost everyone else.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    >SVG didn’t hand ASML a magic EUV license. I never said that. What I meant was that once ASML acquired SVG, it also become a US-based operation, which gave them the leverage over Canon and Nikon when acquiring a EUV license from the US gov as it was now also a US company, not just a Dutch one.
    - lossolo 1y ago
      > I never said that. Reading your first comment in full, it seems like you actually did, at least that's the impression I got from the wording you used. Then you toned it down and didn’t address the other arguments. What I meant is that simply giving a license to company Y is not the same as being capable of producing the EUV machines that ASML produces. It's similar to TSMC, anyone can buy an ASML machine, but there is only one TSMC, because it's not just about the machine and not just about the light source.

0_____0 1y ago

Cymer is now a business unit of ASML. I can't immediately find reference to them licensing from Sandia, although I do see a mention of a collaboration with LLNL. How'd you work this out and can you link a resource or publication?

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>Cymer is now a business unit of ASML. Operating on US soil, in US jurisdiction under US laws.
- porridgeraisin 1y ago
  And it's a JV with DoE meaning all the usual security rules and in practice the dutch are completely firewalled from everything, they don't even have access to the EUV tech.