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Founded in 1984 in the Netherlands, ASML holds a monopoly on the extreme ultraviolet lithography machines for advanced semiconductor manufacturing
Dutch company ASML holds a global monopoly on the advanced lithography machines essential for manufacturing the world's most powerful semiconductor chips.
ASML $ASML is a Dutch semiconductor equipment company that manufactures the machines used to print circuits onto silicon chips. Without ASML's equipment, the world's most advanced chips — the kind that power smartphones, data centers, and artificial intelligence systems — cannot be made. The company is headquartered in Veldhoven, in the southern Netherlands, and is publicly traded on both Nasdaq $NDAQ and the Amsterdam stock exchange.
Founded in 1984 as a joint venture between Dutch electronics conglomerate Philips and chip equipment maker Advanced Semiconductor Materials International (ASMI), ASML has grown into one of the most strategically important companies in global technology. It is the sole manufacturer of extreme ultraviolet lithography, or EUV, machines — a distinction that gives it an effective monopoly over the production of the world's most sophisticated semiconductors. EUV machines use light with an extremely short wavelength to etch circuit patterns onto silicon wafers at resolutions measured in nanometers, enabling chipmakers to pack billions of transistors onto a single chip.
