THE United States is pushing the Netherlands to ban ASML Holding NV from selling to China mainstream technology essential in making a large chunk of the world’s chips, expanding its campaign to curb the country’s rise, according to people familiar with the matter.

The United States’ proposed restriction would expand an existing moratorium on the sale of the most advanced systems to China, in an attempt to thwart China’s plans to become a world leader in chip production.

If the Netherlands agrees, it would broaden significantly the range and class of chipmaking gear now forbidden from heading to China, potentially dealing a serious blow to Chinese chipmakers.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denounced U.S. efforts as “technological terrorism” during a regular news briefing yesterday in Beijing. But he didn’t elaborate on whether China planned any response to the move.

U.S. officials are lobbying their Dutch counterparts to bar ASML from selling some of its older deep ultraviolet lithography, or DUV, systems, the sources said.

These machines are a generation behind cutting-edge but still the most common method in making certain less-advanced chips required by cars, phones, computers and even robots.

The issue arose during U.S. Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves’ visit to the Netherlands and Belgium in late May and early June to discuss supply chain issues, said the sources. During that trip, Graves also visited ASML’s headquarters in Veldhoven and met chief executive officer Peter Wennink.

The Dutch government has yet to agree to any additional restrictions on ASML’s exports to Chinese chipmakers, which could hurt the country’s trade ties with China, the sources said.

ASML is already unable to ship its most advanced extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, lithography systems, which cost about 160 million euros (US$164 million) per unit, to China as it cannot obtain an export license from the Dutch government.

The U.S. push on ASML comes as U.S. President Joe Biden separately considers easing some of the Trump-era tariffs on consumer goods from China. While China may welcome such a move at a time of tense relations between the two countries, Biden’s administration has continued his predecessor’s efforts to restrict China’s access to U.S. technology.

ASML is the world’s top maker of lithography systems, machines that perform a crucial step in the process of creating semiconductors. ASML’s dominance of the market for that type of equipment means that further cutting China off from access to its products would undermine the Asian country’s ambitions to make itself more self-sufficient in production of the crucial electronic components.

The older generation of machinery, DUV, is less capable than more advanced EUV lithography equipment but remains indispensable in manufacturing many of the types of chips that are currently experiencing acute shortages. The United States is focused on banning sales of the most advanced type of DUV technology, immersion lithography machines, the sources said.

Immersion lithography is also known as argon fluoride immersion, or simply ArFi. According to China-based Founder Securities, ASML sold 81 ArFi systems in 2021, compared with four from Japan’s Nikon Corp., giving the Dutch firm a 95% market share. (SD-Agencies)