The Dutch authorities is quickly to hitch the United States and Japan in rolling out new semiconductor export management measures aimed toward holding delicate expertise away from China as a consequence of concern for potential misuse, the nation’s financial affairs minister informed reporters on a go to to Washington.
The measures are more likely to additional prohibit gross sales to China by Netherlands-based ASML, maker of the world’s most superior chip-printing machines, which final 12 months disclosed the “unauthorized misappropriation of data” by a now former worker in China.
The United States in October 2022 introduced its personal export management measures affecting superior computing built-in circuits and sure semiconductor manufacturing objects.
The U.S. mentioned the measures have been aimed toward objects that “could provide direct contributions to advancing military decision making” equivalent to “designing and testing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), producing semiconductors for use in advanced military systems, and developing advanced surveillance systems that can be used for military applications and human rights abuses.”
The U.S. subsequently requested allies together with Japan and the Netherlands, which play key roles within the semiconductor provide chain, to introduce related measures.
“The main concern is [the chip-making technology] will be used in military products,” Micky Adriaansens, Netherlands’ minister of financial affairs and local weather, informed a bunch of journalists on June 8 on the Dutch Embassy in Washington.
Adriaansens acknowledged that the negotiations with Washington haven’t been straightforward.
“To be honest, the conversation has been intense, and is still intense,” she mentioned. “But we agreed already upon the main issues, with a good [mutual] understanding of what is the right thing to do.”
Adriaansens mentioned these understandings nonetheless must be translated into laws however that her nation understands the significance of the measures.
“We realize that we, the U.S., the Netherlands, Japan and Korea, are very strong in the semicon[ductor] value chain, supply chain, and we have a responsibility there,” the minister mentioned, echoing an announcement made by Japan’s commerce minister in March.
Japan additionally takes steps
Tokyo introduced its personal measures on March 31, saying that starting in July, Japan will prohibit 23 forms of semiconductor manufacturing tools from being exported to China. “We are fulfilling our responsibility as a technological nation to contribute to international peace and stability,” Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura informed reporters.
At the middle of the Netherlands’ semiconductor export management deliberations is ASML, a Dutch firm with its headquarters in Veldhoven, about an hour and a half’s drive southeast of Amsterdam. The firm was often known as Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography in its early years however is now often known as ASML.
Europe’s greatest high-tech agency by market capitalization, ASML is the world’s largest provider of photolithography machines, that are used to provide laptop chips.
Its flagship merchandise are the EUV, or excessive ultraviolet, and DUV, or deep ultraviolet, lithography machines that use superior gentle expertise to shrink after which print tiny patterns right down to the nanometer degree on silicon wafers, a vital and important element of the semiconductor manufacturing course of.
Since 2019, ASML’s world-exclusive EUV machines have been on the Netherlands’ export management checklist, that means they can’t be offered to China with out authorities approval. In an announcement issued in March, the corporate mentioned it understood that the brand new export controls could possibly be utilized to its less-advanced DUV machines and different merchandise as effectively.
While Taiwan is its prime buyer, ASML has greater than 1,000 workers working in 12 workplace buildings in main Chinese cities together with Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Last 12 months, gross sales to China made up 14% of the corporate’s whole web programs gross sales.
In its 2022 annual report, launched on February 15 this 12 months, the corporate disclosed that it had skilled “unauthorized misappropriation of data relating to proprietary technology by a (now) former employee in China.” The incident could have led to the violation of sure export management laws, the report mentioned.
The firm mentioned a complete inner overview has since been launched, however the nature and extent of the info that was misappropriated has not been publicly disclosed.
Report mentions potential leak
Another potential leak of the corporate’s proprietary info that occurred in China was disclosed within the earlier 12 months’s annual report.
“Early in 2021, we became aware of reports that a company associated with XTAL, Inc., against which ASML had obtained a damage award for trade secret misappropriation in 2019 in the USA, was actively marketing products in China that could potentially infringe on ASML’s IP rights,” mentioned the 2021 report.
The second firm was recognized as Beijing-based DongFang JingYuan Electron, which was established in 2014 at about the identical time as XTAL and managed by the identical individuals.
ASML’s annual report mentioned the corporate had shared its issues with the Chinese authorities and was monitoring the state of affairs intently.
In its case in opposition to XTAL, ASML informed the court docket {that a} former Chinese worker working at an ASML subsidiary within the United States had stolen 2 million strains of supply code for vital software program. It mentioned the theft was carried out on behalf of each XTAL and DongFang.
ASML’s representatives informed the court docket that it took XTAL solely two years to duplicate a expertise that ASML had spent $100 million and a decade growing, as first reported by Bloomberg. XTAL, which ASML’s attorneys described in court docket proceedings as basically the identical as DongFang JingYuan, then tried to promote the expertise to South Korea-based Samsung, a longtime shopper of ASML.
In late March, ASML CEO Peter Wennink met with China’s newly put in minister of commerce in Beijing. China is “firmly committed to high-level openness, willing to create favorable conditions for multinationals such as ASML to do business in China,” Wang Wentao, the newly minted commerce minister, informed the visiting CEO.
“We hope ASML will affirm and strengthen its confidence in trading and investing in China and make proactive contributions to Sino-Dutch collaboration in trade and economics,” Wang continued.
It is not clear whether or not the 2 sides mentioned the mental property infringement points described in ASML’s 2021 and 2022 annual studies or in the event that they did, what cures Beijing could have proposed.
‘Relentless pursuit’
Asked how the corporate plans to fend off future makes an attempt to steal its commerce secrets and techniques, an organization spokesperson informed VOA that ASML is dedicated to “relentless pursuit of individuals or entities that violate or threaten to violate our [intellectual property] in any way.”
While much less well-known for semiconductor manufacturing than Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. or U.S.-based Intel, ASML is commonly seen as Europe’s most beneficial high-tech firm, probably key to the Netherlands’ profitable the bid to be the seat of NATO’s newly established Innovation Fund.