In response to the global chip shortage, Asma will significantly expand its personnel

On January 20, Peter Wennink, chief executive of Dutch lithography machine manufacturer Asma, said in an interview on Wednesday that the company plans to increase the total number of employees from the current 31,500 to 35,000 by the end of this year. He said the company will recruit more than 4,000 new employees in 2021, and the total number of employees by the end of 2022 will increase by nearly 30% compared with the end of 2020.

Asma's goal is to overcome the capacity bottleneck caused by the global chip shortage by recruiting thousands of new employees.

Asma expects revenue in the first quarter of 2022 to be lower than analysts expected due to the company's decision to postpone testing of the lithography machine in order to speed up delivery and conduct final testing and formal acceptance at the customer's site. This approach will cause the company to postpone the recognition of revenue until the customer's formal acceptance, but will allow the customer to put the lithography machine into production early.

Winningke said it would take two to three years to balance supply and demand because demand is 40 to 50 percent higher than the company's maximum capacity. He added that with the construction of new factories, the chip industry may even have "some degree of oversupply" by 2025 or 2026.

Winningk said: "We seriously lack mature chip technology, we need mature manufacturing capabilities. ”