I feel like ASML is the company that almost everyone who would care has heard of at this point. Granted, I hadn't heard of them 3 years ago, even though I work directly with HW designers.

Its just funny how they're going through the hype cycle in their level of public awareness. Give it 3 years and (hopefully) the "general public" won't have to care about them again, because chip shortages are resolved :)

ASML will matter for decades unless a competitor surpasses them. US is already blocking them from exporting to China

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-wants-a-chip-machine-from...

the company is probably as important as TSMC in terms of geopolitics now

> US is already blocking them from exporting to China

Which works until China invades Taiwan. Then what?

Seeing as you need ASML people to run these effectively, maintain them, repair them - I'm guessing we will see a massive global semiconductor shortage if China invades that makes this year look like a cakewalk.

They can probably shut them off remotely. Also, some high end CAM equipment is geofenced. They are only licensed for one location.

As if a geolocation cannot be falsified :)

Can geolocation easily be falsified? Sure you can jam GPS, but can you easily falsify it?

I'm not an expert, but I was surprised to learn that GPS chips aren't as simple as I imagined. E.g. to get a "normal" (civilian I guess) licence you have to manufacture your chips so that they shut down if the object is moving too quickly (otherwise it could be used for missiles).

It can be done for probably less then a thousand dollars, even.

It's also pretty trivial to detect the simple falsification schemes, but outside of exotic military and research projects, none of the easily available GPS SoCs bother.