# ASML

> The Dutch company that builds the machines every advanced chip factory depends on.

- Level: Intermediate
- Topics: Tech companies, Hardware
- URL: https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/asml/
- In Spanish: [ASML](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/es/asml/)

**ASML** is a Dutch company that builds **lithography** machines: the equipment that prints circuit patterns onto silicon wafers. Making a chip involves many steps, but lithography decides how small the transistors can be. The machine shines light through a mask holding the circuit's pattern, shrinks it with optics and projects it onto the wafer, layer after layer.

Its most advanced machines use **EUV** (extreme ultraviolet) light, with a wavelength far shorter than visible light, which is what makes today's smallest transistors possible. ASML is the only company in the world that makes EUV machines. Each one is the size of a bus, costs roughly a couple of hundred million dollars, ships in many containers and takes months to install. TSMC, Samsung and Intel all depend on them for their leading-edge chips.

That monopoly turns ASML into a geopolitical piece. The machines rely on parts from a network of European, American and Japanese suppliers, and the Dutch government, coordinating with the United States, restricts which machines can be sold to China. Whoever cannot buy EUV machines cannot make the most advanced chips, whatever their designs.

## An analogy

The only maker of the printing presses fine enough to print the smallest letters in the world. Authors and printers compete fiercely, but all of them buy their presses from the same workshop.

## Keep in mind

- Builds lithography machines, which print circuit patterns onto silicon wafers.
- The only company that makes EUV machines, needed for the most advanced chips.
- TSMC, Samsung and Intel are its key customers.
- Export rules on its machines shape who can make cutting-edge chips.

## Go deeper

- [ASML, about the company (official site)](https://www.asml.com/en/company)
- [ASML Holding on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding)
- [Extreme ultraviolet lithography on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithography)

## Related terms

- [Chip](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/semiconductor-chip/): A sliver of silicon carrying billions of tiny switches that compute and remember.
- [Transistor](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/transistor/): An electrically controlled switch, the basic building block of every chip.
- [Container](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/container/): A sealed box with a program and everything it needs to run anywhere.
- [TSMC](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/tsmc/): The factory that makes the world's most advanced chips for everyone else.
- [Samsung](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/samsung/): Korean giant that sells phones and TVs, and makes much of the world's memory chips.
- [Intel](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/intel/): The American company behind most PC and server processors for decades.