The european battlefield of the chip wars

Today, Bloomberg reported that the Dutch government will try and limit the access of students to advanced tech courses in universities, more specifically trying to prevent Chinese students from advanced semiconductor courses.

While it is well known that most chips are developed in the US and most chips are manufactured in Taiwan, it is less known that all advanced semiconductor technology needs deep UV equipment from Dutch ASML and that ASML only can make Deep UV with mirrors from Zeiss in Germany.

This makes Europe important in the current chip war between China and the US and its western allies.

What is even less known is Europes position in the research into new semiconductor technology. A new study from SNV gives insight into the hidden future of Semiconductors through the research papers published over the last 20 years

From the study, it is obvious that most chip manufacturers does not participate in public research like they used to with a few exceptions like Intel, mirroring their interest in increasingly becoming fabless.

The trend from Industry generated papers are clear and downwards except for China that has reached the level of EU.

For academia generated research, Europe is a significant player although China is getting close.

The key institutions that are generating the research are from Korea, Taiwan and Belgium. In fact #1 and #4 are from Belgium and both are from the Belgium city of Leuven. Adding that ASML is headquartered in Veldhoven only 100km away in Holland and it is obvious that this small border area is the most important center for European Semiconductor research and vital for the global industry.

It is in this light the potential ban of Chinese students from advanced Semiconductor courses should be seen.