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Comment by motoboi | Hacker News Reader

yeah, but those machines are built in Europe. Most in Netherlands to be exact, but Holand too.

Netherlands AND Holland? Isn't that the same place?

Also: Even while ASML steppers are built in Netherlands, there are a lot of other non-photolithography tools needed to build a fab in addition to the ASML tools.

> Netherlands AND Holland? Isn't that the same place?

Holland is part of the Netherlands. Not unlike how say Texas is part of the United States.

So in that regard the statement was redundant, yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland

And ASML is not in Holland, nor is Nexperia or ASMI. I can't think of any semiconductor business in "Holland".

ASML has offices in Delft, so in proper HN Standard Pedantic Form: Well, actually there is!

And to be extremely pedantic, machines are not built there.

It's a tiny satellite office.

Roughly half the Capex for a new modern fab goes to ASML.

Nor for long. If the Chinese didn't already have incentives to break ASML's monopoly, they do now.

There's more to that than just ASML, as that company in turn uses specialty lenses produced by Zeiss. Additionally there's crucial American IP (I don't recall what specifically) that goes into those machines, so advanced semiconductor production is more of a global effort really.

Meanwhile China is trying to do all that domestically. They might even pull this off, but just like with their 7nm tech, they're unlikely to be able to do this economically.

> (I don't recall what specifically)

I believe it's the lightsource, made by Cymer of San Diego before ASML took them over.

They're working hard but this particular product is so high-tech they struggle to develop it. I bet they have mostly complete reproductions, but just missing key components like the laser.

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