We are going to talk about a company unknown to the general public, which has a key role in the production chain of electronic chips which are everywhere. She is Dutch and she is not only a European but a global leader.
We are talking about ASML (remember this name), the second largest stock market valuation in Europe, three times that of Airbus.
So, I ask the listeners to concentrate!
It makes machines that make the most powerful chips in the world. With ultraviolet radiation lithography technology.
Don’t worry, I’m having trouble keeping up too. A light ray engraves the circuits on a silicon wafer. ASML has reduced the thickness of this ray so much that it will pass below the nanometer – a billionth of a meter thanks to the numerical aperture.
In short, we are almost infinitely smaller than a hair.
ASML promises its customers, such as the American Intel and the Taiwanese TSMC, that they will soon manufacture chips with three times as many transistors. Especially for artificial intelligence.
Price of each machine the size of a large bus: 350 million euros!
So it’s a gem!
Europe really has few in very high technology, but yes it is one.
To the point that the company finds itself at the heart of the technological war between the United States and China. Under pressure from Washington, The Hague revoked ASML export licenses for the most advanced machines in 2018 and then in 2023.
Last year, the company sold 450 of its machines and hopes to further double its turnover.
And it is run by a Frenchman
Yes, for two months, and this morning he gave his first interview to the newspaper Les Échos.
Christophe Fouquet is an engineer – let us also say in passing that we never pay enough tribute to engineers for their innovations.
Well, to leave you (and me) totally perplexed, I quote this manager: today, there are between 200 and 300 billion transistors on certain chips. By 2030, there will be 1,000 billion. End of quote…
If some of our listeners have visualized the transistors formerly broadcasting France Inter, I tell them solemnly: they are missing the point!
How to reindustrialize Europe?
Here is a question asked to the French leader… His answer: the real problem is not financing but administrative burdens.
To build a semiconductor factory, in Taiwan it takes one year, here in Europe 4 years.
Furthermore, in March, ASML threatened to relocate investments because of the barriers to immigration wanted by Geert Wilders’ far-right. Since then, the company seems reassured: as in Italy, the far-right has had to back down.
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