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ASML is the leading company worldwide for owning the technology and making the wafers to produce silicon chips. If there are any competitors, we would consider Canon and Nikon as possible pacemakers too. ASML controls about 62% of the market volume, and its chipmakers, such as TSMC, Nvidia, Samsung, and Intel, amongst others, are the company’s key clients.

To date, ASML is the only company capable of using extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) technology to slice and program silicon wafers. More importantly, EUV is the only available technology to reach the 2nm process. 

There is also deep ultraviolet lithography (DUV) technology that is older and much less efficient. Interestingly, while DUV is the earlier technology, Chinese manufacturers still haven’t been able to reverse engineer it properly so that it can be used at an industrial level. Also, it is very unlikely that China will be able anytime soon to copy and reverse engineer the EUV technology even if it could get hold of one of ASML’s slicing machines.

As of now, Taiwan and China may be the biggest chip-manufacturing countries in the world, but this might change very soon. In fact, the US and the EU have recently jumped into the silicon market by supporting Intel and TSMC to set up production factories in their territories.  

The quality of the chip depends on how finely a wafer is sliced onto the chip. Regular chips run on 7nm respectively 5nm process technology. High-technology and next-generation silicon chips use 5nm respectively 3nm process technology. Apple is for now one of the key companies envisioning a mass roll-out of the 3nm technology for its products.

But the 3nm technology may soon be old too; ASML is about to launch the next-generation lithography machine, called high-NA-EUV, which will allow chipmakers to process with 2nm processors. If so, ASML will extend its lead over the competition, and it will result in a further technology milestone for the chip industry.