Dutch government to restrict sales of processor chip tech

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — 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 Overseas Commerce and Growth Cooperation Liesje Schreinemacher despatched a letter to lawmakers outlining the proposed limitations, which come along with present export controls on semiconductor expertise.

“In view of technological developments and geopolitical context, the federal government has come to the conclusion that it’s essential for (inter)nationwide safety to increase the present export management of particular semiconductor manufacturing tools,” 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 pace and accuracy of its army logistics. It urged allies like Japan and the Netherlands to observe go well with.

China has criticized the strikes as violations of market ideas in worldwide commerce.

The Biden administration is also near tightening guidelines on some abroad investments by U.S. corporations in an effort to restrict China’s means to accumulate applied sciences that would enhance its army prowess, in keeping with a U.S. official aware of the deliberations.

The anticipated motion is the newest effort by the White Home to focus on China’s army and expertise 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 singular and main place, similar to probably the most superior Deep Extremely Violet (DUV) immersion lithography and deposition.”

It added that the choice for extra export controls “was made rigorously and as exactly as attainable (surgically), to be able to keep away from pointless disruption of the worth chains and to have in mind the worldwide stage taking part in subject.”

The federal government stated it might publish the brand new rules “earlier than the summer season.”

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.”

“As a result of these upcoming rules, ASML might want to apply for export licenses for cargo of probably 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 based mostly on the announcement “our expectation of the Dutch authorities’s licensing coverage, and the present market state of affairs, we don’t count on these measures to have a cloth impact on our monetary outlook that we’ve revealed for 2023 or for our longer-term situations.”