According to the latest report, ASML said that the company’s chief executive Peter Wennink is visiting South Korea, where its main customer is located, for its local chip cluster project and meeting with employees. No formal meetings with key clients were scheduled for the trip, the spokesman said, declining to give further details.
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Moreover, Wennink visited Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, and discussed with local people the semiconductor industrial park under construction and the plan for cultivating local talents. “With the strong support of the city government, the ASML Hwaseong semiconductor cluster is progressing well,” the city quoted Wennink as saying.
In November last year, ASML signed a memorandum of understanding with Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, and plans to invest 240 billion won ($212 million) to build a 16,000-square-meter chip cluster in Hwaseong by 2024. The facilities will include an office for 1,500 employees, as well as a training and repair center for EUV machines.
Wennink last visited South Korea in November, where he met with executives from major customers such as Samsung to discuss chip development and supply. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Wennink said the company could not keep up with global demand fast enough, and the industry feared a two-year shortage of key chip-making equipment.
Furthermore, South Korea is ASML’s key market, accounting for 33.4% of its total net sales in 2021, compared to 29.7% in 2020. Earlier this year, Wennink said the company would aggressively expand its operations in South Korea and hire an additional 1,000 local employees by 2029.
