i卡會員

While Europe holds control over key technologies in advanced manufacturing equipment, its overall market share at different stages of the value chain lags behind that of the US and Asia, with interdependence among global regions. According to the “Strategic Dependencies and Capacities” working document issued by the European Commission, Europe's advantages in the semiconductor value chain primarily lie in equipment and materials (excluding silicon wafers) (Figure 1). Major players include ASML (Netherlands), the exclusive global supplier of the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment crucial for advanced semiconductor processes; ASM (Netherlands) and Aixtron (Germany) specializing in thin film deposition equipment; BASF (Germany) providing semiconductor chemicals; Merck (Germany), Linde (Ireland), Air Liquide (France) supplying speciality gases; Siltronic (Germany) and Soitec (France) producing silicon wafers; and IQE (UK) manufacturing compound semiconductor epiwafer and substrate, from among others.