ASML Holding opened a new facility in South Korea’s Hwaseong on Wednesday, strengthening its position in a country that represents roughly 40% of the Dutch equipment maker’s revenue.
The company invested 240 billion won ($164 million) in the 16,000-square-meter campus over four years, establishing maintenance facilities and training centers for extreme ultraviolet lithography technologies. The site will eventually house around 1,500 employees when personnel relocation completes by year-end.
ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet met with Samsung Electronics Vice Chair Jun Young-hyun and SK Hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung during the visit. The meetings signal closer collaboration on advanced chipmaking as both Korean companies race to deploy next-generation lithography equipment.
The facility’s remanufacturing center enables ASML to source parts locally, reducing equipment repair times that previously required shipping components to Europe. The opening is expected to accelerate ASML’s 1.2 trillion won joint research project with Samsung focused on sub-2-nanometer process technologies using higher numerical aperture EUV machines.
SK Hynix installed its first production-grade High-NA EUV tool at its Icheon M16 facility in September, while Samsung deployed an R&D unit in March and plans to add production equipment in the first half of next year. Each High-NA EUV machine costs approximately 550 billion won ($376 million), roughly 80% more than conventional EUV systems.
The proximity to major semiconductor manufacturers enables faster technical support as chipmaking complexity increases, Fouquet said at the opening ceremony.
