​Data on the most sophisticated industrial equipment used in semiconductor manufacturing has been leaked to China after an ASML employee allegedly stole data related to the company’s technology. The information was confidential and also related to the lithography systems used by ASML.

The Dutch company ASML says it has reported the incident to the authorities of the Netherlands and the United States. The company cited a violation of export control rules, but said the incident did not threaten its business. No data was provided on what kind of information reached China.

Tensions between the US and China have escalated in recent weeks as the US has imposed multiple bans on Chinese technology and ASML is a key player in the semiconductor industry’s supply chain.

ASML Holding, a company that few people have heard of, makes the “printing machines” that companies like TSMC, Samsung or Intel use to make microprocessors.

ASML is based in the Netherlands and was founded in 1984 by the giant Philips and Advanced Semiconductor Materials International (ASMI). In its early years, the company used technology developed by partner companies, but over the past decade it has grown tremendously, invested in research, and developed some of the most sophisticated machines ever created by man.

ASML has become today’s most important supplier of equipment to microprocessor manufacturers, and it all has to do with a technology called lithography, with which manufacturing companies develop circuit diagrams on silicon wafers. The more transistors and components that can be added to a single chip, the more data it can store.

Since 1997, the company has begun transitioning to using ultraviolet (extreme ultraviolet, or EUV) light because this light has an ultra-short wavelength that can create even thinner patterns than was possible with traditional lithography methods. The company decided to invest in cars that would use this technology and invested more than 8 billion dollars in it.

Investing in these new technologies were the largest chip manufacturers: Intel, Samsung, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, who knew they would benefit if ASML built the machines for the highest-performance chips, as those machines were going to be produced.

ASML developed the technology in several stages with American, European and Japanese partners, and these industrial supermachines now feature German-made mirrors, San Diego-sourced hardware and chemicals, and Japanese-sourced electronic components.

The costs of developing the machines were high because the technology was extremely complex: ASML worked with the Germans at Zeiss for the necessary mirrors, but it was also difficult to find suitable laser technology.

Sources: CNN, BBC

Photo source: Dreamstime.com