throwaway902375

Most customer fabs run airgapped because they contain some of the most valuable IP on the planet. So pretty much none of the above applies.

It’s mostly legacy hardware and code combined with ASML support contracts. ASML support is provided on-request remote access to the systems, or someone flies out if the customer is particularly paranoid.

ASML would kill for any tracking or diagnostics to be regularly send back to Eindhoven for R&D purposes, but it mostly doesn’t happen because machine diagnostics data is intertwined with the chip IP.

I’ve talked to a fair share of insiders myself and general consensus is that the hardware basically sells itself, and customers approach the software stack as something they’re unfortunately stuck with.

ASML developed new software products over the years but it didn’t pan out and at this point customers are wary of anything being sold and would rather keep 20 year old inefficient but proven to work systems around. Think racks of control systems next to DUV machines that are officially years EOL but ASML is forced to sell today because it’s all a customer is willing to buy into.