The Dutch authorities introduced Wednesday that it’s planning on imposing further restrictions on the export of machines that make superior processor chips, becoming a member of a U.S. push that goals at limiting China’s entry to supplies used to make such chips.
Dutch Minister for International Commerce and Growth Cooperation Liesje Schreinemacher despatched a letter to lawmakers outlining the proposed limitations, which come along with current export controls on semiconductor know-how.
“In view of technological developments and geopolitical context, the federal government has come to the conclusion that it’s crucial for (inter)nationwide safety to increase the prevailing export management of particular semiconductor manufacturing gear,” she wrote.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited U.S. President Joe Biden in January for talks on superior chip machines made by Dutch firm ASML and different matters.
The Biden administration in October imposed export controls to restrict China’s entry to superior chips, which it says can be utilized to make weapons, commit human rights abuses and enhance the velocity and accuracy of its navy logistics. It urged allies like Japan and the Netherlands to comply with go well with.
China has criticized the strikes as violations of market rules in worldwide commerce.
The Biden administration is also near tightening guidelines on some abroad investments by U.S. firms in an effort to restrict China’s capability to amass applied sciences that might enhance its navy prowess, in keeping with a U.S. official conversant in the deliberations.
The anticipated motion is the most recent effort by the White Home to focus on China’s navy and know-how sectors at a time of more and more fraught relations between the world’s two greatest economies.
ASML, headquartered within the southern Dutch city of Veldhoven, is the world’s solely producer of machines that use excessive ultraviolet lithography to make superior semiconductor chips. The Dutch authorities has prohibited ASML from exporting a few of its machines to China since 2019, however the firm had nonetheless been transport lower-quality lithography programs there.
ASML has analysis and manufacturing facilities in Beijing and Shenzhen, China, in addition to a regional headquarters in Hong Kong.
The Dutch minister’s letter to lawmakers didn’t point out China.
It stated the brand new export management measures goal “very particular applied sciences within the semiconductor manufacturing cycle on which the Netherlands has a novel and main place, reminiscent of essentially the most superior Deep Extremely Violet (DUV) immersion lithography and deposition.”
It added that the choice for extra export controls “was made fastidiously and as exactly as potential (surgically), as a way to keep away from pointless disruption of the worth chains and to have in mind the worldwide degree enjoying subject.”
The federal government stated it will publish the brand new laws “earlier than the summer time.”
In an announcement revealed on its web site, ASML stated that the brand new restrictions will apply to its “most superior deposition and immersion lithography instruments.”
“Resulting from these upcoming laws, ASML might want to apply for export licenses for cargo of essentially the most superior immersion DUV programs,” the corporate stated, including that it “will take time for these controls to be translated into laws and take impact.”
The corporate added that primarily based on the announcement “our expectation of the Dutch authorities’s licensing coverage, and the present market scenario, we don’t anticipate these measures to have a fabric impact on our monetary outlook that we now have revealed for 2023 or for our longer-term situations.”
