The Dutch company ASML, as basically the only company in the world that makes the lithography machines used to produce the most complex microchips, has again become a geopolitical pawn. The United States government is preparing to force the Netherlands to ban ASML from selling almost any chip-making machines to China, NU.nl reports.
You can’t do that. There is a reason only one company in the entire world can do it. It’s because it’s really hard to do and it is an iterative technology.
That reason is nobody has ever dumped a shitload of cash into it because it was cheaper to just buy from the company that already figured it out.
Well, now China has no other option other than trying to produce it.