According to foreign media reports, Peter Wennink, CEO of the Dutch Dutch lithography machine manufacturing giant ASML, expressed his views on the US’s “chip ban” on China at a meeting. Peter Wen said that this practice in the United States has hurt the European semiconductor industry. If it continues, it will promote the process of China’s semiconductor autonomous development. By that time, European suppliers are likely to completely lose the Chinese market.
Most semiconductor companies in Europe are highly dependent on the intellectual property rights of US semiconductors, which leads to European semiconductors having to abide by the rules set by the United States in market competition. Therefore, during the United States' suppression of Chinese high-tech companies, many companies in Europe were unable to export key technologies and products related to chip manufacturing to China without the permission of the US government, which has led to a significant decline in profits of some European companies.
It is understood that due to the intervention of the United States, the Dutch government had suspended issuing licenses for exporting high-end lithography machines (EUVs) to enterprises as early as 2019. Although this move did not lead to a decline in ASML's revenue and profit, losing a huge Chinese market is indeed not worth the loss for ASML.
Generally speaking, continuing to trade with other countries in accordance with the rules set by the United States is very unfavorable to the development of the European semiconductor industry. Peter Win also said in an interview that EU trade with China should be established in a level competitive environment, so the EU should not cut off exports to China's high-end technology.
In order to get rid of its dependence on US technology as soon as possible and further seize the say in the global semiconductor trade, the EU is currently accelerating the establishment of its own semiconductor supply chain.
In December last year, there was news that 17 EU countries have signed a joint statement, hoping to invest 145 billion euros in the next two or three years to build Europe's own semiconductor ecosystem and strive to get rid of its high dependence on US technology as quickly as possible.
Then in March this year, the EU officially announced a new plan, expressing its hope to increase its share in the global semiconductor market to 20% by 2030, and also officially announced plans to overcome the 2nm advanced process. In order to better promote the pace of research and development of the high-end chip manufacturing industry, EU countries also plan to use high subsidies to attract globally renowned chip manufacturers such as TSMC, Samsung , Intel to build factories in Europe. Not long ago, Intel has responded, expressing its willingness to build factories in Europe.
From the EU's series of plans to invest in the high-end chip industry, it can be seen that the EU's determination to get rid of its dependence on US technology is very firm, but it has to admit that the US sanctions on Chinese technology have indeed affected the development of European companies.
In fact, not only European companies have been affected, but almost all related companies around the world have been affected by the US "chip ban". Previously, Japanese media reported that the United States' suppression of China's chip field has seriously disrupted the global new chip supply chain and is one of the reasons for global chip shortage. Affected by this, many countries realize that only by establishing their own semiconductor ecosystem can we better avoid the reappearance of semiconductor crisis.
