Europe is pushing back on Washington’s chip war
As ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet told TechCrunch in May, what China can currently buy are older-generation deep ultraviolet tools — gear first shipped about a decade ago — the same machines the MATCH Act would now put off limits.
Europe is opposing a U.S. bill called the MATCH Act that would restrict Chinese chipmakers from accessing Western semiconductor equipment. A Dutch trade minister visited Washington to express concerns about the bill, which would particularly impact a Netherlands-based company that is the world's only maker of the sophisticated lithography machines used to produce cutting-edge AI chips. The company currently derives a significant portion of its sales from China, and the proposed bill would extend existing restrictions to include older-generation equipment that is currently permitted for sale. The bill has not yet faced a full vote in Congress and would likely need to be included in a larger legislative package to pass.
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