"Nobody in Europe buys ASML chip fabrication machines" — with that line, Frank Heemskerk, in remarks picked up by Golem.de, reduces Europe's semiconductor position to a single contradiction. The continent hosts the world's only supplier of EUV lithography and almost no customer that needs those machines for leading-edge chips.
ASML's customer list is geographically unambiguous. Anyone fabricating below five nanometres sits in Taiwan, South Korea, the United States and increasingly Japan: TSMC, Samsung, Intel, SK Hynix, Micron. The tools those fabs order cost a mid-three-digit million sum per EUV system, and considerably more for the High-NA generation.
Europe's own plants are almost all in a different category. Infineon, Bosch, STMicroelectronics, the planned ESMC fab in Dresden, X-FAB and Nexperia make power semiconductors, microcontrollers, sensors and automotive chips — largely on more mature nodes. Those lines run older DUV tools, not EUV. The EU Chips Act targets 20 percent of global production capacity by 2030, mostly in exactly those mature structures: plenty of capacity, little leading-edge capability. Intel's planned Magdeburg plant, long the centrepiece of German hopes, was repeatedly delayed and eventually shelved.
That leaves Europe without the buffer it would need. China was a substantial share of ASML's revenue for years; under tightened export controls it is shrinking as an outlet for leading-edge tools. If at the same time nobody in Europe orders the expensive machines, ASML's fortunes rest more heavily than ever on a handful of Asian and American buyers.
The strategic point follows. Europe holds a real lever — EUV is a monopoly, joined by Zeiss optics and the equipment of ASM International and BESI — but it is leverage over supply, not over manufacturing. Anyone worried about being cut off from leading-edge chips should look beyond the machines and ask why their own continent is not placing the orders. Note: the setting and context of the quoted remark are taken from Golem.de's report and have not been independently verified here.
