ASML Holding

ASML is a Dutch company and the largest supplier in the world of photolithography systems for the semiconductor industry. The company manufactures machines for the production of integrated circuits (ICs), such as DRAM memory, flash memory, and CPUs.
The photolithography machines manufactured by ASML are used in the production of computer chips. In these machines, patterns are optically imaged onto a silicon wafer that is covered with a film of light-sensitive material (photoresist). This procedure is repeated dozens of times on a single wafer. The photoresist is then further processed to create the actual electronic circuits on the silicon. The optical imaging, that ASML's machines deal with, is used in the fabrication of nearly all integrated circuits, and as of 2010, ASML has 67 percent of the worldwide sales of lithography machines, with the competition consisting of Ultratech, Canon and Nikon.
SML’s corporate headquarters is in Veldhoven, Netherlands. It is also the location for research, development, manufacturing and assembly. ASML has a worldwide customer base and over sixty service points in sixteen countries. The company is listed on both the AEX and NASDAQ Stock Exchanges, as ASML.

The company (originally named ASM Lithography) was founded in 1984 as a joint venture between the Dutch companies Advanced Semiconductor Materials International (ASMI) and Philips. Nowadays it is a public company with only a minority of the shares owned by Philips.

ASML is a subject to cyclical industrial dynamics. For example, at the end of 2008, ASML experienced a large drop in sales, which led management to cut the workforce by about 1000 worldwide—mostly contract workers -- and to apply for support from the Dutch national unemployment fund to prevent even larger layoffs . Two and a half years later, ASML expected a record-high revenue.

Profit €1.022 billion