[HN Gopher] ASML Q4 2022 financial results
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       ASML Q4 2022 financial results
        
       Author : stangles1
       Score  : 46 points
       Date   : 2023-01-25 21:03 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.asml.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.asml.com)
        
       | bruce343434 wrote:
       | Ok, and?
       | 
       | No but on a serious note, can someone give some context? Is there
       | something special about these numbers that is newsworthy?
        
         | kryptiskt wrote:
         | ASML has a monopoly on Extreme UV lithography machines which
         | are needed for top end chips. So it's a pretty good picture of
         | where investment in chip fabrication is heading.
        
         | bdcp wrote:
         | ASML has many eyes balls on it, due to the potential in stock
         | prices
        
           | fredski42 wrote:
           | Including the eye balls of Biden
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | Rather, ASML makes some equipment that you literally cannot
           | get from anywhere else, and the stock price is reflecting
           | this.
        
         | hardware2win wrote:
         | It comes from ASML
         | 
         | They and TSMC are one of the hottest companies that
         | additionally do hard engineering instead of social medias or
         | ads
        
           | somethoughts wrote:
           | AMAT (Applied Materials) would be company representing the US
           | in this space.
           | 
           | AMAT and ASML sell mostly complimentary semiconductor
           | equipment to TSMC/Intel/Samsung (semiconductor
           | manufacturers/fabs)
        
             | iruoy wrote:
             | I wouldn't call ASML's products complimentary. They are the
             | only machines capable of EUV lithography. Without EUV,
             | nodes smaller than 7nm wouldn't be possible. But even
             | before EUV they were the leading manufacturer of
             | lithography machines. They deliver to all the big players
             | like TSMC, Samsung and Intel.
             | 
             | They are so important/valuable that the US government is
             | negotiating with the Dutch government to ban ASML from
             | selling EUV machines to China.
        
               | cma wrote:
               | They were already able to ban, because ASML's EUV effort
               | partly came out of a DARPA/US-industry consortium (EUV
               | LLC from the 1990s).
        
               | nwiswell wrote:
               | They're complimentary products because lithography isn't
               | useful if you don't have Etch, CVD, PVD, ALD, CMP,
               | Implant, etc.
        
               | terafo wrote:
               | They are negotiating DUV ban. EUV is banned for years
               | now.
        
               | m00dy wrote:
               | I remember bridgewater shorted ASML for big positions for
               | no reason and then the news broke out that US government
               | banned ASML from selling some stuff to China.
        
         | comboy wrote:
         | They may be the most important/irreplaceable company in the
         | world.
        
       | gallerdude wrote:
       | Everyone talks about the machine that makes the chips, but I've
       | never heard mentioned the machine that makes the machine that
       | makes the chips.
       | 
       | (I guess it's probably just a bunch of regular machines, but it
       | feels like there's got to be some special sauce in there
       | somewhere)
        
         | Fordec wrote:
         | The main company there is Zeiss in Germany that makes all the
         | high grade optics. Part of the reason ASML is Dutch is it has
         | access to the German precision manufacturing up-stream, quite
         | literally.
        
           | ragebol wrote:
           | Zeiss makes parts of the ASML machines. GP comment asks what
           | machine make the ASML/Zeiss machines.
           | 
           | CNC machines I guess for everything besides the optics? Just
           | a guess. And measuring equipment.
        
         | nwiswell wrote:
         | Mostly these machines are assembled from a combination of
         | proprietary parts manufactured using regular machine tools by
         | contract manufacturers, and from sub-units purchased from
         | specialist suppliers.
         | 
         | For example: proprietary parts including optics, wafer chucks,
         | process chambers, structural panels, etc are manufactured to
         | spec by contractors. Pumps, valves, motion control boxes, wafer
         | robots, loadports, servers, etc are all bought from suppliers.
         | 
         | There's not really any magic. The materials used for the parts
         | are sometimes exotic (e.g. single crystal silicon, single
         | crystal quartz, yttria coating, PEEK, sapphire, etc), but the
         | contract manufacturers use the same old boring machine tools
         | that everyone does.
        
           | hashtag-til wrote:
           | Oh come on... you just broke the myth I had on my mind for
           | many years, that this company was some magical craftwork shop
           | for mechanical parts.
           | 
           | Anyway, nice to get a bit more realistic view. Thanks!
           | 
           | Eager to hear more about the software, which I heard some
           | crazy stuff about how it is engineered and tested.
        
             | nwiswell wrote:
             | Sorry :)
             | 
             | I should not really say too much, but the software tends to
             | be kind of a trainwreck. WFE companies are definitely
             | engineering-first organizations, but software is a second-
             | order concern in general since it is a check-the-box
             | requirement rather than a truly differentiating product
             | feature, and companies like Lam and AMAT which are
             | headquartered in the Valley have serious trouble competing
             | for software talent. Moreover the software has a multi-
             | decade pedigree with a concordant amount of technical debt.
             | Pretty much everything is C++.
             | 
             | Anyway, there are fairly well-specified standards issued by
             | SEMI like SECS-II and GEM that govern interoperability. In
             | my (highly biased) opinion, the really interesting stuff is
             | the real-time control systems that operate on millisecond
             | timescales to make minute adjustments on the fly using data
             | from onboard sensors to improve process outcomes.
        
       | nwiswell wrote:
       | Related: Lam Research (another very large WFE company, #4 by
       | revenue after AMAT, ASML, and TEL) announced a 7% layoff today.
        
       | sct202 wrote:
       | I suppose all the chip acts haven't really kicked in yet, so
       | it'll be interesting to see how the regional deliveries shift. In
       | their Presentation Investor Relations file for 2022, they have
       | Taiwan as their #1 destination by dollar spend.
       | 
       | Taiwan 42%
       | 
       | South Korea 29%
       | 
       | China 14%
       | 
       | USA 7%
       | 
       | Japan 4%
       | 
       | Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) 2%
       | 
       | Rest of Asia 2%
        
         | kryptiskt wrote:
         | I wonder where the machines for TSMC's Arizona fabs would end
         | up in that breakdown.
        
           | sct202 wrote:
           | The header to the graph says "Ship to Location" so probably
           | under the US, unless they ship older units from Taiwan to the
           | US and send new units to Taiwan. Intel reportedly sent at
           | least one EUV machine from their development site in Oregon
           | to a production fab in Ireland, so it's possible they could
           | do the same.
        
         | foota wrote:
         | I wasn't aware that South Korea was such a big player in the
         | chip industry. Is this for compute or something else?
        
           | florakel wrote:
           | Samsung
        
             | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-25 23:00 UTC)