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I grew up well after the death of US lithography so this was interesting to learn about. Even in specialty manufacturing the US struggled to make any of this stuff work. What’s even more surprising is Canon and Nikon somehow lost ground to ASML in the 193i transition then bailed entirely with EUV. There are no answers, and nothing lasts.
The reason why Japanese companies pulled out is because the Japanese economy crashed.
ASML was never really smarter than everyone else they just managed to bleed money longer. They won in the boardroom not the lab.
When did the Japanese economy crash in this context?
The year 1995. It took 15 years for Japan to reach the same GDP. It’s GDP is once again below that level and in constant decline.
Except that the major Japan vs USA/ASML EUV race was ramping up in the late 90s through to about 2010. Canon hit the wall around 2008 during the global financial crisis that rocked the US just as hard if not harder, Nikon kept limping until signaling defeat and cutting back around 2011 or so. The 1995 Japanese economic crash is very real but it had no effect on the EUV race since that was decided a decade later.
1995 is late 90’s
It’s mid 90’s lol
You miss the point of my comment. Japan was ramping UP funding and organization around EUV in the late 90s and early 00s. The exact opposite effect of what you are implying. The financial crunch only arrived a decade later.
It all didn’t just fall to the ground and break. Plenty of industries saw the effects late.
Well ASML got their biggest customers to invest in EUV R&D and secured their adoption, so political alliances played a huge role.
Worth noting that Canon and Nikon pulled out largely because their domestic suppliers all joined ASML to become EUV suppliers. ASML is barely a single company much less a company based in a single nation/region.