U.S. pressured Netherlands to block China-bound chip machinery
ASML Holding NV canceled shipments of some of its machines to China at the request of U.S. President
Joe Biden’s administration weeks before export bans on the high-end chipmaking equipment came into effect, people familiar with the matter said.
The Dutch manufacturer had licenses to ship three top-of-the-line deep ultraviolet lithography machines to Chinese firms until January when new Dutch restrictions took full effect. However, U.S. officials reached out to ASML to ask it to immediately halt pre-scheduled shipments of some of the machines to Chinese customers, according to people who were familiar with the matter and asked not to be identified because the discussions were confidenSecurity tial.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had called the Dutch government about the matter late last year, the people said, and Dutch officials asked the U.S. to contact ASML directly about shipments of the equipment, called immersion deep ultraviolet lithography machines. Shipments of a limited number of machines were canceled following the
U.S. request, they said, though it wasn’t immediately clear how many of the devices, which can cost tens of millions of dollars apiece, were involved.
Biden is cracking down on Beijing’s attempts to create its own advanced semiconductor industry, and the U.S. and its allies are blocking access to imported technology. China’s Huawei Technologies Co. produced a smartphone to rival Apple Inc.’s iPhone last year using
top-of-the-line chips made with ASML’s immersion lithography machines, Bloomberg News has reported.
ASML, Europe’s largest technology company, confirmed that the Dutch government partially revoked licenses recently for the shipment of certain lithography systems to China, affecting a small number of customers there. In a statement issued after Bloomberg’s report, the company said it has held recent discussions with the U.S. about the scope and impact of its export-control regulations, without elaborating. ASML said it doesn’t expect the latest blockade to have a “material impact on our financial outlook for
2023.”
Spokespeople for the White House National
Council and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the U.S. intervention in China’s access to technology an act of “hegemony” and urged the Dutch government to “respect the spirit of the contract and world order, to safeguard the mutual benefits of the two countries.”
This most recent crackdown — which might have hit SMIC, one of China’s top-tier chipmakers — will ultimately motivate Beijing to accelerate the development of its own technology, moving toward independence from international suppliers, according to Equita SIM analyst Gianmarco Bonacina.