ASML turned an old BBC description into a badge of honor as its chipmaking technology took off - why “relatively obscure” is printed on its hoodie

Being called “relatively obscure” is probably not the kind of description most companies would want to remember. ASML did something different with it.

Sander Hofman from ASML has printed the BBC’s description of the company as “relatively obscure” on a hoodie, turning the old remark into something of a badge of honor.

It is an amusing detail about a company that has become anything but obscure. ASML makes the machines used to manufacture the world’s most advanced computer chips, and it is the only company with that kind of technology.

ASML makes the machines behind advanced computer chips

ASML does not make the computer chips themselves. Instead, it makes the machines that chipmakers use to produce them.

The process involves building intricate patterns of transistors, or miniature electrical switches, layer by layer on a silicon wafer.

ASML’s lithography systems project light through a blueprint of those patterns. The light is then shrunk and focused using advanced optics before the pattern is etched onto a photosensitive silicon wafer.

The company’s most advanced machines use extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, light with a wavelength of just 13.5 nanometres, as per a BBC report.

Sander Hofman compared the technology to using different types of pens. Because of the shorter wavelength, the light acts like a fine liner for drawing extremely fine lines of integrated circuitry instead of using something more like a marker.

The ability to create those fine circuits allows more components to fit onto the silicon. That can give electronic devices more processing power and memory while keeping them the same size.

One ASML machine can take a year to assemble

The machines are highly complex and require an extremely controlled environment.

An EUV machine can take a year to assemble and deliver. The machines also operate in a vacuum because the chipmaking process can be disrupted by even tiny impurities.

That means the people assembling them have to be extremely careful.

ASML technician Bram Matthijssen said workers sometimes have to wear gloves over gloves to make sure they do not leave fingerprints or bring additional dust into the machine.

He said, “A single finger print... can cause significant damage to the machine,” as quoted by BBC.

In 2022, ASML delivered 50 of its highest-specification machines and 400 machines in total.

Those sales, along with income from managing and upgrading existing machines, brought the company €21.2 billion ($22.7 billion; £18.9 billion) that year. The orders in its pipeline were worth twice that amount.

ASML’s technology took decades to develop

The company’s position did not come quickly.

Wayne Lam, a consultant with technology research firm CCS Insights, said ASML’s machines take years, if not decades, to develop and perfect.

ASML had been working on its highest-specification machines since the early 2000s. Lam said there were competitors working on their own technology, but there was no true competitor to ASML in the near term.

That makes the BBC’s description of the company as “relatively obscure” particularly striking.

Hofman’s hoodie turns the phrase into a reminder of ASML’s journey. A company once described that way now makes technology that is central to the production of the most advanced computer chips.

ASML has become caught between the US and China

ASML’s importance to the semiconductor industry has also brought it into the middle of the rivalry between the US and China.

China has long wanted to manufacture the most advanced computer chips, for which it needs ASML machines.

But since 2019, the US has effectively blocked ASML from exporting those machines to China.

Joris Teer, a strategic analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, said the US wants to prevent China from catching up in chip technology.

ASML chief executive Peter Wennink said he did not expect the restrictions to badly affect the company in the long term.

Wennink said, "If the semiconductors cannot be made in China they will be made in [South] Korea, in the US or in Europe or in Taiwan. So ultimately we will ship those machines because the world needs that capacity," as quoted by BBC.