ASM International shifts some manufacturing to US to escape tariffs

By Nathan Vifflin

April 30 (Reuters) - Dutch chip-making equipment supplier ASM International ASMI.AS 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 ASML.AS and BESI BESI.AS, with U.S. sales accounting for 21% of its revenue last year.

It also competes with major U.S. players such as Applied Materials AMAT.O and LAM Research LRCX.O, 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 INTC.O and TSMC 2330.TW which manufacture advanced chips for Nvidia NVDA.O and AMD AMD.O.

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.