Dutch chip-making equipment company ASML will jointly invest 1 trillion South Korean won ($760 million) with South Korea’s Samsung Electronics to build a factory that develops advanced semiconductor processing technology in South Korea.
This announcement came as South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol visits the Netherlands on a four-day visit seeking to form a “semiconductor alliance” between the two countries.
ASML is the world’s only manufacturer of the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines required to manufacture the most advanced chips such as those found in Apple’s latest iPhones which are manufactured by Taiwan’s TSMC.
“Technological innovation led by ASML has become a powerful driving force for the Fourth Industrial Revolution worldwide, and Dutch semiconductor companies such as ASML and ASM are building new production, R&D and talent training facilities in Korea.” The South Korean presidential office said Tuesday.
Yun visited ASML’s headquarters on Tuesday with King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, and toured the production site of the next generation UV machines.
Samsung is the world’s largest maker of dynamic random access memory chips, which are used in consumer devices such as smartphones and computers. South Korean chipmakers rely on ASML UV machines to produce chips faster and more efficiently than competitors.
The statement also said that ASML will collaborate with South Korean chip giant SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest DRAM chip maker, to reduce the energy use and costs of EUVs through hydrogen gas recycling technology.
Before his visit to the Netherlands.. Yoon told AFP media Semiconductors are “the focus of cooperation between Korea and the Netherlands.”
“The Netherlands is home to ASML, which produces lithography equipment that makes semiconductors, and the two countries have worked together for years in an exemplary way,” the president said at the time.
“[This] “It will represent a decisive turning point for the Korea-Netherlands semiconductor alliance.”
He said that this visit to the Netherlands will help the two countries “establish a well-organized institutional framework that will intensively address global semiconductor supply chains,” even as semiconductors emerge with the growth of strategic assets and geopolitical risks surrounding global supply chains.