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ASML's zero European sales trace to new fabs that skip leading-edge chips
ASML says its revenue share from Europe has fallen to zero this year from 5 percent in 2024, as the region's new fabs skip leading-edge chips. Hardware buyers can source mature-node parts locally, but 3nm and 5nm supply depends on EUV capacity ASML says is nearly booked for 2027.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- ASML's revenue share from Europe is zero percent this year, down from 1 percent in 2025 and 5 percent in 2024, according to executive Frank Heemskerk.
- Heemskerk told an Amsterdam event that ASML is selling nothing in Europe because the region is not investing and no chip factories are being built.
- Infineon and GlobalFoundries are building fabs in Germany, and Intel has pledged 5 billion euros to expand production at its Leixlip campus in Ireland.
- According to DataCenterDynamics, none of those European facilities make leading-edge chips, so they do not need ASML's EUV or High NA EUV machines.
- CEO Christophe Fouquet said ASML is close to having all the EUV orders it needs for 2027, even while adding about 30 percent more capacity than in 2026.
Compiled by The Product DeskSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- contradiction Heemskerk's claim that no factories are being built conflicts with the fabs under way in Germany and Ireland. The zero describes missing leading-edge capacity, and a buyer who reads it as missing capacity overall will overlook usable local suppliers.
- constraint A European buyer who needs 3nm or 5nm parts has no local fab in this reporting to turn to, so buy-European commitments stop short of the most advanced chips in a product.
- decision ASML is appealing directly to the customers of its customers. Hardware teams now have to decide whether to move mature-node orders to European fabs to help create the demand ASML says is missing.
- cost A new leading-edge project in Europe would buy tools costing up to $370 million a unit from EUV capacity ASML says is nearly booked for 2027, so a European source for advanced chips is years away.
A sourcing manager at a European equipment maker gets the same question from above every few quarters: with public money going into chips on this continent, can we buy closer to home. ASML now wants that manager to try. "We need to make sure that some of those buyers - the customers of our customers - start talking much more closely with European manufacturers again," Frank Heemskerk, the company's executive vice president of public affairs, said [5]. "In areas such as artificial intelligence for industry, for example, there are still plenty of opportunities that Europe can seize. But you have to organize this collectively." [6]
He called the situation "genuinely worrying" [3]. ASML is talking with politicians, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, about attracting investment and getting customers to buy locally made chips, he said [4].
Teams tend to tell themselves that the money going into European fabs gives the parts on their roadmap a European source. What is being built is narrower. The ESMC fab in Dresden, backed by 5 billion euros of state aid the Commission approved in 2024, is a TSMC project in which NXP, Infineon and Bosch each hold 10 percent [8]. ASML is the only supplier of the EUV and High NA EUV machines needed for 3nm and 5nm chips [10]. A fab can draw billions in state aid and still need neither machine [8][9].
The leading-edge buyers are elsewhere. TSMC and Samsung have both committed to using High NA tools by the end of the decade [12], at roughly $370 million a unit, about twice the price of a standard EUV machine [11]. Chief executive Christophe Fouquet said ASML has begun exploring a further 30 percent capacity increase for 2028, partly because of the "large number of orders from our customers for EUV" it has already received [14]. If that goes ahead on top of the 2027 increase, EUV capacity in 2028 would be about 1.69 times its 2026 level [15].
I'd plan 3nm and 5nm supply as non-European for at least the 2027 and 2028 capacity ASML is now booking, and spend European sourcing effort on mature-node parts, where the new fabs are. That split has a cost on both sides. The mature-node half means qualifying suppliers whose capacity is still being built or only pledged [7]. The leading-edge half means telling whoever asked that the answer is no.
To sort a product, write the process node next to every chip on the bill of materials. Then write why you want it made in Europe: a customer or regulator asking, or your own hedge against depending on one region. For a mature-node part, a customer ask points to the German and Irish sites Heemskerk wants buyers calling, and a hedge means a second source to qualify [7]. For a leading-edge part, a customer ask gets the plain reply that no European fab in this reporting makes it [9]. A leading-edge hedge has no European option on this evidence. The work there is allocation with the fabs placing EUV orders, TSMC and Samsung among them [12].
What to watch
- Whether any European fab project commits to 3nm or 5nm production that would need EUV or High NA EUV tools.
- Whether ASML confirms the second 30 percent EUV capacity increase it is exploring for 2028.
- What comes of ASML's talks with Ursula von der Leyen and other politicians on getting customers to buy European-made chips.