Outsourcing wafer handler to VDL ETG fails, ASML takes back full control

Over the past few years, the curtain has come down on an ambitious ASML-VDL venture that lasted more than a decade. VDL ETG assumed full product responsibility for the wafer handler, a module it was already assembling. Moving development to ETG’s Acht facility in 2012 was supposed to make things simpler and cheaper. In addition to development and production, ASML’s partner would invest in R&D, design, systems engineering, roadmapping and more. VDL ETG was moving up the value chain, taking on a role similar to that of Trumpf and Zeiss.

Signing the outsourcing contract kicked off a massive operation. Some 120 engineers, a third of them software developers, temporarily moved from Veldhoven to Acht. Their assignment was to make wafer handler development independent of ASML. That meant setting up the tooling and defining a robust interface between the module and the rest of the machine.