ASM International shifts some manufacturing to US to escape tariffs

By Nathan Vifflin

(Reuters) -Dutch chip-making equipment supplier ASM International has started local production of tools for U.S. chipmakers in response to the U.S. tariffs backdrop, its Chief Executive said on Wednesday.

"We've already started to manufacture some of the tools for our customers in the U.S., just to get us started," CEO Hichem M'Saad said a day after the company reported quarterly earnings.

"Our global installed base, our global infrastructure, allows us to really have manufacturing in many places - and Phoenix, Arizona, is one of them."

ASM is the most exposed to the U.S. market among European peers including ASML and BESI, with U.S. sales accounting for 21% of its revenue last year.

It also competes with major U.S. players such as Applied Materials and LAM Research, and analysts have warned it is at risk of losing market share to them.

Europe's second-largest semiconductor equipment supplier has had a presence in Arizona for more than half a century, where it has been joined by customers such as Intel and TSMC which manufacture advanced chips for Nvidia and AMD.

M'Saad said being close to chipmakers will help with the development and adoption of ASM's most advanced processes, like Atomic Layer Deposition, where it has so far had little competition.

ALD allows for the creation of ever smaller chip circuits by depositing atomic thin layers of materials on a silicon wafer.

(Reporting by Nathan VifflinEditing by David Goodman, Kirsten Donovan)