The Dutch government has announced additional export restrictions on the export of chip manufacturing machines to China effective September 1 this year. This was announced today by responsible Minister of Foreign Trade Liesje Schreinemacher.
According to the responsible minister, the additional export measures are taken from the point of view of national security. Moreover, she indicates in a statement, companies involved -in this case mainly ASML, but also ASM International- now know precisely where they stand. The additional export restrictions are to take effect Sept. 1.
The export restrictions are imposed because the Dutch government fears that the equipment could also be used for military purposes by the Chinese government. The US in particular has recently put a lot of pressure on our country to implement these export restrictions.
DUV technology
The minister’s regulation published in the Government Gazette (Dutch) clearly specifies which chip production technology is involved. First is the already well-known high-performance EUV technology, but now the slightly older deep ultra violet (DUV) technology. The former is already subject to export restrictions, for the latter it had been decided during this year to impose export restrictions. The latter has probably now been made official.
Double whammy
As a sort of “double whammy,” the US is also likely to announce new export restrictions on the supply of chip manufacturing machinery to China very soon. This would be announced by the end of July , according to Reuters.
More specifically, these would include export restrictions to a number of specific Chinese chip factories, including a factory of China’s largest manufacturer SMC. These companies are unlikely to be able to buy machines under the export restrictions.
In particular, these new U.S. restrictions are going to affect exports of ASML machines. This is because these systems contain American-made parts and components.
Reaction of China and ASML
China’s reaction is still pending. What is known is that it is obviously very unhappy with the export restrictions and that the Netherlands and the U.S. may face sanctions. ASML has responded to the developments via a press release by saying it is not expecting the move to affect the company financially.
Read more: ‘Netherlands strengthens chip export restrictions at request of US’