Bad news in the technology industry: Wim Trost, founder of Asme, has passed away!
On the evening of June 11th local time, lithography giant ASML, headquartered in the Netherlands, posted on social media to mourn WimTroost, one of ASML's founders.
In the best-selling technology book "Lithography Giants: The Rise of ASML", there is a passage describing him as follows: "Trost saved wafer steppers from the scrap heap. In the decades after World War II, if anyone was a representative figure of Philips, it was none other than him."
The founder of Asma passed away
The official account of ASML posted, "One of our founding fathers, Vim Trost, has passed away. Trost was one of our founding elders and CEO from 1987 to 1990, when ASML was working hard to secure its first client. After retirement, Trost has been a true ambassador for ASML and the high-tech industry. He has inspired generations after generations. We thank Trost for his contributions to ASML's DNA and strong corporate culture. His vision, leadership skills, and perseverance have inspired generations to come. We express our condolences to Trost's family."
According to media reports, Wim Trost passed away last Friday morning (June 8th) at the age of 98.
In 1925, Wim Trost was born in The Hague, Netherlands. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to Bompj ö sdik, a small village located on a dam in the Zeeland province of the southwestern Netherlands, with only 80 households, one street, and two farms. There, Trost's father and uncle inherited his grandfather's bakery and grocery store. Trost attended high school there and then went to vocational school. In September 1945, after young Trost recovered from the war, his father took out the last 40 dollars from his family and sent him to Delft University of Technology to study physics.
In post-war reconstruction, the Netherlands needed a large number of young engineers, and Trost was one of them. Philips has sent several invitations to Trost. He visited Natlab and visited many departments of Philips. Trost initially decided to work for Shell because he was worried that going to Philips would only make him an ordinary employee. But when he heard that the oil company might send him to another country at any time, he gave up. In the end, he joined Philips with an annual salary of $1240 and an additional $50 bonus. In October 1967, Trost was appointed as Philips Chief Engineer and Head of R&D Department.
Later on, Trost became the developer of Philips wafer stepper machines and the only person to express interest in lithography machines at Philips management team meetings. In 1984, Philips and ASM established a joint venture ASML. In 1987, ASML, which was on the verge of collapse, had no leader. Just two years after retiring from Philips, Trost decided to become ASML's CEO. He led ASML through the crisis of 1988 and retired again in 1990.
Latest updates from Asma
Asma is the largest company in the Netherlands and also the most valuable technology company in Europe. It has 40000 employees worldwide, of which 24000 work in the Netherlands. In the field of lithography machines, Asma is not only the world's largest manufacturer, but also the only supplier of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines.
According to the latest news from Reuters, the Eindhoven City Council in the Netherlands voted on Tuesday to approve the expansion plan of lithography machine manufacturer ASML. This preliminary plan was announced by ASML and the local city government in April to develop new facilities in a relatively undeveloped area near the city center in northern Eindhoven, which can accommodate up to 20000 employees.
According to reports, Asma, the largest technology company in Europe, needs additional space to develop alongside the semiconductor industry, and it is expected that the semiconductor industry's output value will double in the next decade. In January of this year, Asma began threatening to transfer its main business outside the Netherlands if it did not receive guarantees of development in the Netherlands. This prompted the Dutch national and regional government to commit $2.7 billion in March to improve transportation and housing in the Eindhoven region, a plan known as the "Beethoven Project".
With the expansion of Asma and other technology industry companies, the population of the Eindhoven metropolitan area is expected to increase from 850000 to over 1 million in the next decade. One of the architects and legislators of the city's planning, Stijn Steenbakkers, stated that retaining Asma is crucial for the Netherlands and Europe as it will change Eindhoven.
On April 22nd, Asma announced that it had signed a letter of intent with the city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands to explore expansion plans near the northern airport, which may accommodate 20000 new employees. Roger Dassen, Chief Financial Officer of Asma, wrote in a statement, "As we have previously stated, Asma tends to bring its core business in the Netherlands as close as possible to the company's existing location, and the expanded Eindhoven base is located near the company's Feldhofen headquarters."
Dassen said that Asma typically considers talent, infrastructure, housing, and investment environment as prerequisites for investment. He also mentioned that the measures recently announced by the Dutch government have played a helpful role.
Prior to this, the relationship between the Dutch government and Asma was once very tense. In November last year, the far right Dutch political party, the Liberal Party, won the parliamentary elections and declared that it would promote policies such as anti immigration and restrictions on the number of foreign students studying abroad, which brought huge recruitment and employment pressure to Asma. Later, it was reported that Asma had expressed an intention to expand or relocate to other places to the Dutch government, and France was one of the options. Peter Wennink, CEO of Asma, also mentioned at a meeting that if skilled foreign workers cannot be found in the Netherlands, they will go to other places where they can develop.