AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Computer chip equipment maker ASML said it did not expect new U.S. restrictions on semiconductor exports to China, announced on Monday, to affect long-term demand. term for its products, but it is studying the potential immediate impact.

The new US rules are Washington’s third crackdown in three years on China’s semiconductor industry, tightening regulations on equipment makers and limiting exports to 140 Chinese companies, including other subsidiaries of the China’s largest custom chip manufacturer, SMIC.

The latest rules include tighter restrictions on relevant software for ASML, which said it was assessing the potential implications.

“In the long term, our demand scenarios in the semiconductor industry are not expected to be affected by the new regulations, as (our) scenarios are based on global wafer demand rather than a specific geographic distribution,” he said. the company said in a statement. statement.

ASML shares were down 0.3% at 656.40 euros at 2:35 p.m. GMT.

The new US rules include restrictions on “computer lithography” – software used to optimize the efficiency of lithography machines such as those made by ASML and Japanese competitors Nikon and Canon, which use beams of light to create circuits .

ASML, the largest maker of lithography machines, says on its website that its computational lithography is also “industry-leading” and helps improve chip yield and quality.

The US Commerce Department’s statement said it aims to restrict software that could be used to make chips above the thresholds allowed by Washington using DUV lithography machines and “multipatterning” – a technique that would have been used by SMIC to manufacture advanced chips for smartphones for the Chinese Huawei. .

“Computational lithography software that is not currently controlled can improve the minimum feature size achievable with DUV to less than 40 nm and can facilitate the complex mask decomposition necessary for multi-patterning,” the Commerce Department said.

“This addition addresses this potential workaround.”

(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Toby Sterling; editing by David Goodman and Susan Fenton)