ASML can barely keep up with the demand for chip machines, and they notice that in ‘small town’ Wilton

“Bill is back,” says Joost Ploegmakers, head of production at the ASML facility in Wilton, Connecticut. He points out.

A cardinal, a bright red bird, bounces frantically at the window of his office.

Nature is never far away in this American town nestled in the New England woods. According to the latest count, 18,503 people live in Wilton. And Bill.

“This little bird comes by almost every day – I think to fight with his reflection in the window. I named it after my predecessor, Bill Amalfitano.”

The fact that Wilton is prosperous – one of the wealthier municipalities in the state with an average income of $ 80,000 per capita – is partly due to the largest employer: the Dutch chip machine manufacturer ASML.

In the middle of the built-up area of ​​this small townon both sides of the Route 7 main road, 2,500 people work on advanced components and sensors that are mounted in lithography machines in Veldhoven, Brabant.

These machines are then sent out into the world from the Netherlands to start producing chips in a large factory of Intel, TSMC, Samsung or SK Hynix.

Lithography machines project patterns of chips onto round plates of semiconducting material. The chips are built up layer by layer. Each chip contains a collection of billions of transistors that together control your phone, computer or car. ASML is the market leader in this complex technology, with a share of more than 80 percent.

200 million dollars

It is Monday afternoon, early May, when Joost Ploegmakers is preparing for a private ‘all hands meeting‘; an interview with the entire staff. He’s been working on the East Coast for a year and a half now. His message to the employees: Wilton must keep up with Veldhoven’s murderous pace. Not that this is a new message, some employees say afterwards: “We have been working here under high pressure for so long that it is starting to get used to.”

The demand for lithography machines, crucial in the chip production process, is so great that ASML can’t get enough made. The chip shortage, which has persisted for two years, has not yet been solved and the chip industry is also counting on increased demand for computing power, digital storage and communication chips in the long term.

The US and Europe want their own chip factories to be less dependent on Asian manufacturers. This results in even more orders for ASML (annual turnover: 18.6 billion euros).

Wilton has to grow with it. At the end of May, ASML announced an additional $200 million investment in its Wilton facility. ASML CEO Peter Wennink announced this together with the US Department of Commerce.

ASML tries to attract new people to the Connecticut-New York border. American technicians are usually willing to move, says Joost Ploegmakers, “also to Wilton.” Production workers are sought close to home, with billboards along the way. “Not all high-tech jobs are out of reach,” reads the ASML slogan. Even if you high schoolIf you have a diploma, you can already start working at ASML. More fun than a job at the local Walmart, according to another ASML slogan: “Become part of a company that’s part of everything.”

No limit

For the assembly work on parts of the lithography systems, scientific training is not necessarily necessary. This does apply to the development department, where 1,100 people work on new products for chip machines. Where do you get those skilled people from, ASML employee Claire Chen wonders. She is responsible for the development department and has to triple her research group – fourteen people – over the next two years to keep up with the pace ASML requires. “There is currently no limit to the number of people we can hire,” she says.

Chen herself is a graduate of MIT, the technology institute in Boston. She sponsors projects there to show what ASML has to offer in terms of technology and challenges. “The chip shortage has helped to put ASML on the radar of students.”

What makes expanding in Wilton even more complex is that the factory produces for several ASML divisions. And they all ask for more.

The parts from Wilton end up in lithography machines, which work with deep ultraviolet light, also called DUV. These are the most commonly used lithography devices in the chip industry. In addition, technology is made here for lithography machines with extreme ultraviolet light, EUV. ASML is making 55 of these devices – 160 million euros each – this year. Wilton is also preparing for the next step: EUV systems with larger lenses (High-NA). These machines can produce even finer chips. ASML wants to supply twenty of these devices, which cost 400 million euros each, from 2024.

Hubble telescope

The ASML facility in Wilton originally belonged to Perkin-Elmer, an American company that was already working on advanced lenses around World War II. In the late 1960s, the Department of Defense asked Perkin-Elmer to design lithography machines to produce chips for military applications. In lithography machines, lenses are important because they must be able to project the light accurately.

The company continued to make lenses; including for the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in 1990 to take pictures of distant galaxies. However, Perkin-Elmer could not keep up with the developments in lithography. In the 1990s, the company was acquired by the American Silicon Valley Group (SVG). In 2011, ASML paid $1.6 billion for SVG. ASML had set its sights on a major SVG customer, Intel, and wanted access to specialist knowledge and patents related to sensors and optical systems.

SVG was the last American manufacturer of lithography machines. The chip world is now dependent on Dutch high-tech – much to the frustration of the American government. It is trying to prevent ASML from supplying advanced lithography machines to China.

The Biden administration wants to stimulate its own chip industry to be less dependent on Asia. A subsidy package of 52 billion dollars is ready. But the aforementioned CHIPS Act has still not been passed by the US Congress. Chip manufacturer Intel, which wants to build large factories in Ohio, is eagerly waiting for the subsidy. The lithography machines have already been ordered – from ASML.

Refreshing

Much has changed in the twenty years since ASML settled in Wilton. The typical American cubicles in the office have been replaced by open desks and the work culture has become less hierarchical and more direct. “That was very refreshing,” says Christopher—“Just say Chip”—Mason. He is a longtime Perkin-Elmer employee who went through all the takeovers. “It took a few years before I noticed that the ‘Veldhoven’ method was better.”

Perkin-Elmer used to build what the customer wanted, in the smallest possible housing to save space. ASML allowed itself more space to come up with a better solution. “But more discipline is also needed to connect all those separate parts of ASML’s lithography system.”

Chip is now an ‘ASML Fellow’ – an honorary title for the inventors at the company – and sees many new, young colleagues in the workplace. “The enthusiasm of the past is back. The workload is high, but that’s better than the big peaks and troughs we experienced in the early days of the chip industry. That caused a lot of uncertainty at the time,” said Mason.

Enough space

For ASML, which has 35,000 employees worldwide, Wilton is the largest facility in the US. With the growth spurt of the Dutch company, the sleepy town is also turning into a lively high-tech hub. It is a copy of the growth spurt in North Brabant, around the expanding ASML campus in Veldhoven. With one difference: there is still plenty of room in Wilton.

“I cannot emphasize enough how happy we are with ASML,” said Lynne Vanderslice, the First Selectwoman, a New England take on the mayor. “Just call me the CEO of the city. I’ve lived here for over thirty years and lately I’ve seen our community flourish like never before – thanks to ASML employees who shop in our stores and eat in our restaurants.”

But the First Selectwoman is honest: Most people, including me, had never heard of ASML. A few years ago I was working for a volunteer organization hosting urban children and got a call from ASML wanting to make a donation. I then thought: Who is ASML?”

“We had known for some time that ASML had growth plans,” says Michael Wrinn, who is responsible for construction projects in the town. “But we didn’t know they were going to make it so fast. We are now working on a project for 174 homes to accommodate new employees, and a further plot of land has been cleared for additional apartments and townhouses.”

The growing pressure on the local housing market is not only due to ASML, says Wrinn. “Many New York office workers have moved from the city to the countryside during the pandemic.”

There isn’t much to do in Wilton for younger people, preferring to live in towns like Norwalk and the nearby town of Stamford. “At least there is something of a nightlife there,” says Lynne Vanderslice. “This is a family town, for people who love the outdoors and nature.”

As far as Wilton is concerned, ASML can continue to grow in offices that have remained vacant after the pandemic. This saves the town a financial downer, says the First Selectwoman. “Otherwise our tax revenues would fall due to vacancy.”

ASML pays Wilton $2.5 million a year in real estate taxes, 2 percent of the city budget. Vanderslice: „That means extra money for sports fields and other facilities. We all benefit from that.”

The traffic in the town is still bearable, because the intersections at the ASML branch have been improved. Wilton also wants to intensify bus connections with surrounding cities.

Five cities and towns will also jointly create the Norwalk River Valley Trail: a fifty-mile bike path through the vast New England forests, with an exit to ASML. There is a good chance that you will encounter a cardinal along the way.