Even though it has a monopoly on critical technology and the artificial intelligence revolution in full swing, ASML Holdings (NASDAQ: ASML) has lagged both the Nasdaq 100 index and the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SOXX) year to date, as well as over the past one, three, and five years.
This is kind of an amazing statistic, given ASML's monopoly on extreme ultraviolent lithography (EUV), which is needed to produce semiconductors below the 7 nanometer (nm) node. 7nm chips began to be produced in 2019, and the industry has progressed to 2nm chips, which will arrive by the end of this year. Furthermore, all the leading DRAM memory producers are just now adopting EUV, and DRAM demand is exploding because of the memory needs of AI systems.
Source Fool.com