Moore’s Law holds that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years or so. In essence, it means that chipmakers are always trying to shrink the transistors on a microchip in order to pack more of them in. The cadence has been increasingly hard to maintain now that transistor dimensions measure in a few nanometers. In recent years ASML’s machines have kept Moore’s Law from sputtering out. Today, they are the only ones in the world capable of producing circuitry at the density needed to keep chipmakers roughly on track.

Martin Van den Brink is the outgoing co-president and CTO of ASML. He joined the Dutch company in 1984 when it was founded and has played a major role in guiding it to it current dominant position. He explains to MIT Technology Review how the company overtook its competition and how it can stay ahead.

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