Here’s something to distract people from Samsung’s massive legal loss to Apple: Dutch chip technology company ASML announced this morning that Samsung has committed around $976 million to help spur next-generation lithography techniques.
Samsung has purchased 3 percent of ASML for 503 million euros (around $630 million) and will offer up an additional 276 million euros (around $346 million) for R&D purposes.
Samsung is the last company to join ASML’s co-investment program, which also includes Intel and TSMC. ASML says it aims to develop new lithography technologies, including Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, to “extend Moore’s Law.” (Above: A crazy image of one of ASML’s EUV demo units.)
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To refresh: Moore’s Law is the observation that transistor amounts on integrated circuits double every four years, and it led to the more common observation that chip performance doubles every 18 months.
Ultimately, ASML says the research “will enable smarter, more powerful, more energy-efficient, and cheaper electronic devices for consumers.” We can expect to see ASML’s innovations in Samsung’s future mobile chips in smartphones and tablets.
Samsung, Intel, and TSMC now have a total minority (nonvoting) stake in ASML of 23 percent. ASML says it will give back the entire cash proceeds from issuing the shares back to its shareholders via a synthetic buy-back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6p5Fn7gnZKU
