ASML Holding N.V. (ASML) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:ASML) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call July 19, 2023 9:00 AM ETCompany ParticipantsSkip Miller - Vice President, Investor...
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Alexander Duval
Thanks for the question. You spoke about a push-out in demand timing for EUV. I wondered to what extent we should think about this as a one-off push-out from '23 to '24 given the customers presumably would still need these tools for their fabs that are still getting built and their customers in turn have product aspirations for '25 that you've just mentioned? Or to what extent would you expect some 2024 units to be subsequently pushed into 2025? And then, I've got a quick follow-up.
Peter Wennink
Good question. We need to realize it. If you look at the reasons, predominantly the push-out had to do with fab readiness and that was basically driven by construction skills. And you think, "Well, how can that be?" You just hire a couple of construction workers and you just build the fab. Well, just building a $20 billion fab that's going to do a 5- or a 3- or a 2-nanometer product is a skill and people don't seem to realize that when we start building, those fabs across the globe now and are everywhere, that skill has been refined over the last couple of decades in only a few places on the planet, and predominantly in Taiwan and in Korea and a bit in China.
Now having to do that now and accelerate this will lead to all kinds of issues, because we are still building those fabs in Korea and in Taiwan, but also in other places on the planet, also in the U.S., for instance. And so, getting access to the requisite skills and skilled workers to keep the construction plan on time is a challenge, as at least what customers tell us, and this is the main reason. So, you can easily look at a delay of a couple of months or a quarter.
Now -- and of course, like I mentioned earlier, we need those 2-nanometer fabs or 3-nanometer fabs in 2025, but it also means we need to resolve in, let's say, 18-months period, some of those skills gaps. And then now -- but I think it can easily be a problem also at the end of next year, but let's see how quickly they can skill up the construction industry to help build those fabs. So that's the predominant reason for the timing changes or the demand timing changes.
And of course, there's also been in this particular year where there's a few supply chain issues at just one or two systems, but it was -- predominantly it was just fab readiness and for the reasons that I just mentioned. And I hope they get re-skilled quickly and at the end of 2024, we don't have those issues.
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