The system is Dutch. Any component of anything is always trivial.
If the Dutch want to design a new EUV light source, they can probably find someone to do it. If they want to find someone to grind mirrors to match those from Zeiss, maybe they can find someone who worked on the ESO or similar, and similarly with everything else. Think of it like how the F-35 is a Boeing project, even though many companies make components.
The integrator is the maker, not the component manufacturers.
I don't think the US could have made something like ASML. Baumol effect due to the successful firms, different attitudes, etc. There's after all a reason why the others dropped out.
My impression is one important strategic factor is that ASML was not build using venture capital -in which the US is dominant - but relied mostly on government subsidies. Once ASML was a strong player they got a lot of investment from American customers (intel et al) to invest, for example in UEV development. This is a funding approach that doesn't work well in most markets but seems to fit well with the deep speculative research typical of these kinds of systems. As some other users have noted, the US was the initial leader in UEV research (in the very early phases), but the technology was deemed too speculative to attract significant market funding.
Yes. Especially Germans can make these kinds of long-terms plans.
I saw one thing that made it obvious to me that they were only people who could possibly develop a certain technology which hasn't been commercialized. Basically, they were doing research on details that they from their analysis could determine were necessary, but which nobody else had even thought about yet. It took me half an hour of a guy who had done his PhD on it explaining until I understood why they needed it. I think his work was paid for by industry though.
If the Dutch want to design a new EUV light source, they can probably find someone to do it. If they want to find someone to grind mirrors to match those from Zeiss, maybe they can find someone who worked on the ESO or similar, and similarly with everything else. Think of it like how the F-35 is a Boeing project, even though many companies make components.
The integrator is the maker, not the component manufacturers.
I don't think the US could have made something like ASML. Baumol effect due to the successful firms, different attitudes, etc. There's after all a reason why the others dropped out.