ASML is a Dutch multinational company specializing in development and manufacturing of photolithography systems. Currently it is the largest supplier of photolithography systems primarily for the semiconductor industry. The company manufactures machines for the production of integrated circuits.

The photolithography machines manufactured by ASML are used in the production of computer chips. In these machines, patterns are optically imaged onto a silicon wafer that is covered with a film of light-sensitive material (photoresist). This procedure is repeated dozens of times on a single wafer. The photoresist is then further processed to create the actual electronic circuits on the silicon. The optical imaging that ASML's machines deal with is used in the fabrication of nearly all integrated circuits, and as of 2010, ASML has 67 percent of the worldwide sales of lithography machines, with the competition consisting of Ultratech, Canon and Nikon.

The company (originally named ASM Lithography, current name ASML, which is an official name and not an abbreviation) was founded in 1984 as a joint venture between the Dutch companies Advanced Semiconductor Materials International (ASMI) and Philips. Nowadays it is a public company with only a minority of the shares owned by Philips. When the company became independent in 1988, it was decided that changing the name was not desirable, and the abbreviation ASML became the official company name.

After reporting earnings in July 2021, the company said they had a near monopoly for machines used by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung Electronics to make the advanced chips. The electronics manufacturers use Extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment to make silicon chips more powerful with atomic-level precision.

According to wikipedia.org