ASML: The One Machine China Can't Buy
This video explains what that machine actually does: how lithography prints a circuit pattern onto silicon through a photomask and photoresist, why ordinary and deep ultraviolet light ran out of resolving power below about 30 nanometres, and how ASML's EUV systems solve that by vaporising tin droplets into a plasma that emits 13.5-nanometre light, bounced off ultra-precise mirrors in a vacuum because the light is absorbed by almost everything else, including air.
It traces how one company ended up as the sole source: ASML's 1984 founding as a Philips/ASM International joint venture, its 1986 optics partnership with Carl Zeiss, and its 2013 acquisition of light-source maker Cymer for roughly EUR 1.95bn (about $2.55bn) — the combination that let ASML pull ahead of Nikon and Canon, both of which abandoned commercial EUV programmes.
And it covers the fight over who gets to use the machine: the Netherlands' non-renewal of an EUV export licence to China in 2019 under US pressure, the 2023 licensing rules and 2024 partial revocation on advanced DUV tools, and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's unproven June 2026 accusation that an EUV machine had already reached China — denied by ASML in its own words.
Finally, it covers both sides of China's own answer: ASML's China revenue share falling to 19% in Q1 2026 (from 36% the quarter before) and guided toward 20% for the year; SMIC's domestic DUV scanner, codenamed Mount Everest; and a separate, unnamed Shenzhen project that has built a working EUV light source but, by outside assessment, remains years from a working lithography system.
Every figure is on screen with its source and date.
Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.
In these topics
Tags
Chapters
- The machine the size of a bus
- What lithography actually does
- Why light itself became the limit
- Chasing EUV: 1980s to 2006
- How an EUV machine makes 13.5nm light
- ASML's rise: Philips spin-off to monopolist
- Why nobody else can catch up
- The chokepoint goes geopolitical
- 2026: the Lutnick accusation
- China's share collapses, China builds its own
- Can China actually build an EUV machine
- Why one machine outweighs an army
Sources and credits
Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons)
- ASML corporate headquarters, Veldhoven, Netherlands: A ansems, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AASML_headquarters_Veldhoven.jpg
- Howard Lutnick, US Secretary of Commerce, at his January 2025 nomination hearing: United States Senate Committee Hearing Channels, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHoward_Lutnick_%282025-01-29%29.png
- Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) research tool, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 1998: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AExtreme_ultraviolet_lithography_tool.jpg
- Silicon wafer with mirror finish: NASA Glenn Research Center, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASilicon_wafer_with_mirror_finish.jpg
- Semiconductor manufacturing clean room (NASA Glenn Research Center microfabrication lab): Uploaded by Duk 08:45, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC), Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AClean_room.jpg
- Lobby of the Herbert C. Hoover Building, US Department of Commerce, Washington D.C.: Carol M. Highsmith, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALobby%2C_Herbert_C._Hoover_Building%2C_U.S._Department_of_Commerce%2C_Washington%2C_D.C_LCCN2010719591.tif
Primary sources
- ASML, 'ASML's founding story' corporate history page, asml.com, 2024 - the 1 Apr 1984 founding as ASM Lithography, joint venture of Philips and ASM International.
- ASML, 'ASML Has Shipped the Industry's First EUV Tools', press release, 29 Aug 2006 (primary) - the first full-field EUV demo tools to CNSE Albany and imec Leuven.
- phys.org, 17 Oct 2012, and San Diego Business Journal, Oct 2012 - the Cymer acquisition announced value, EUR 1.95bn (about $2.55bn); ASML completion press release, 30 May 2013.
- nltimes.nl and bits-chips.nl, 2019-2020 reporting - the Dutch non-renewal of an EUV export licence to China under US pressure.
- CNBC, 30 Jun 2023, and Electronics Weekly - the Dutch DUV licensing rule effective 1 Sep 2023.
- ASML's own statement and Forbes, 2 Jan 2024 - the partial revocation of DUV shipment licences.
- Bloomberg, 19 Jun 2026, corroborated by NL Times, DutchNews.nl and chinaglobalsouth.com - Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's accusation that an EUV machine reached China, and ASML's verbatim denial.
- Caixin Global, 16 Apr 2026, and ASML's own Q1 2026 results (SEC Form 6-K) - China's share of ASML system sales falling to 19% in Q1 2026 from 36% in Q4 2025, guided to ~20% for the year from 33% in 2025.
- TrendForce, 17 Sep 2025, and TechPowerUp - SMIC's domestic DUV scanner trials, codenamed Mount Everest per Financial Times reporting.
- Reuters, reported via TechRepublic and Taipei Times, 18-21 Dec 2025 - the Shenzhen EUV light-source prototype, built in part by former ASML engineers, which has not yet exposed a wafer.
- TrendForce, 2 Sep 2026, reporting UBS's assessment that China is unlikely to produce a working EUV tool within a decade.
- CSIS, 'Breakthroughs or Boasts? Assessing Recent Chinese Lithography Advancements', Strategic Technologies Blog, 2026 - the 'more exaggeration than transformation' verdict and the $43bn state-investment figure.
Note: The US Commerce Department has not published evidence for the June 2026 accusation, and ASML has denied it in its own words.
Not regulated financial advice.