DECOUPLING: US, Dutch Set to Hit China’s Chipmakers With One-Two Punch.
The Dutch government plans to announce new regulations on Friday with a licensing requirement for the top tier of ASML’S second-best product line, deep ultra violet (DUV) semiconductor equipment. ASML’s most sophisticated machines — extreme ultraviolent “EUV” lithography machines — are already restricted, and have never been shipped to China.
ASML said in March it expects the Dutch regulations to affect its TWINSCAN NXT:2000i and more sophisticated models.
But the company’s older DUV models, like one called the TWINSCAN NXT:1980Di, could also be kept from about six Chinese facilities by the U.S. The facilities are expected to be identified in a new U.S. rule that will allow the U.S. to restrict foreign equipment with even a small percentage of U.S. parts to those sites, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person was not authorized to speak publicly.
The new Dutch regulations will not take effect immediately, sources said, with one person expecting the effective date to be September, two months after publication.
The planned U.S. rule, which sources said may be published by late July, will require licenses to export equipment to about a half dozen Chinese facilities, including a fab operated by SMIC, China’s largest chipmaker, the person familiar with the U.S. plans, said. Licenses to ship the equipment to those facilities will likely be denied, the person said.
Xi’s policy of antagonizing everybody is going swimmingly.