From Water-Powered Textiles to Lithography Machines

The Path of Innovation
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-3-032-35943-8
Verlag: Springer

Buch, Englisch, 406 Seiten, Format (B × H): 168 mm x 240 mm

Reihe: Synthesis Lectures on Technology Management & Entrepreneurship

Through an examination of lithography machines, ASML, and the industrial ecosystem from which ASML emerged, this work argues that profound industrial innovation depends on long-term capability building, institutional stability, and entrepreneurship. The book unfolds in four parts, each developing this case and the questions it raises:

Part I centers on lithography machines and ASML, the Dutch multinational corporation and a world leading supplier of lithography systems for the semiconductor industry. The author examines the technical challenges of lithography machines, the historical development of lithography technology and ASML, and the global collaboration that enabled the breakthrough of EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography, one of the most demanding engineering achievements in modern industry.

Part II looks back over two hundred years of industrial evolution in the Eindhoven region of the Netherlands, where ASML is located, tracing its path from water-powered textiles to a high-tech cluster, while placing this process against the broader historical background of industrialization. It reveals the long-term foundations and inherited capabilities required for profound innovation.

Part III draws on the author’s experience of more than twenty years in Eindhoven—as a student, engineer, and entrepreneur—to show how this ecosystem operates in everyday practice, and what it looks like from the inside.

Part IV builds on a summary of Eindhoven’s industrial experience to examine the formation of its core capabilities, the role Philips played—through its rise and eventual decline—as a central incubator of innovation, and the question of how such inherited innovative capacity can be sustained and renewed beyond Philips itself. It then revisits the development of lithography machines and the industrial experience of Eindhoven region from a natural-philosophical perspective, seeking deeper understanding and broader insight.

Zielgruppe

Popular/general

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zhang, Shaoxian

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Unternehmensführung
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Museumskunde, Materielle Kultur, Erinnerungskultur
• Technische Wissenschaften Elektronik | Nachrichtentechnik Elektronik Elektronische Baugruppen, Elektronische Materialien
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Forschung & Entwicklung (F&E), Innovation

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1  Introduction to Semiconductor Chips, Lithography Machines, and ASML.- Chapter 2 The Challenges of Developing a Lithography Machine.- Chapter 3 The Evolution of Lithography Technology and the Formation of ASML.- Chapter 4 Global Collaboration and the Industrialization of EUV Lithography.- Chapter 5 ASML’s Core Methodology.- Chapter 6 Contemporary Eindhoven and Its Open Innovation Ecosystem.- Chapter 7 The Origins and Five Waves of Industrial Evolution in Eindhoven.- Chapter 8 The First Wave of Industrialization in Eindhoven (1810s–1880s).- Chapter 9 The Second Wave of Industrialization in Eindhoven (1890s–1910s).- Chapter 10 The Third Wave of Industrialization in Eindhoven (1920s–1940s).- Chapter 11 The Fourth Wave of Industrialization in Eindhoven (1950s–1970s).- Chapter 12 The Fifth Wave of Industrialization in Eindhoven (1980s–2025).- Chapter 13  Personal Growth and Education.- Chapter 14 Experience at ASML.- Chapter 15 Observing Small and Medium Enterprises and Innovation Clusters Through an Entrepreneurial Journey.- Chapter 16  Reflections on the Eindhoven Experience.- Chapter 17 Natural-Philosophical Reflections on the Eindhoven Experience.

Über Autor(innen)

Dr. Shaoxian Zhang is an engineer and entrepreneur who has long studied and practiced industrial innovation from a systems perspective. Born in China in 1977, he moved to Eindhoven in the Netherlands in 2002 and received his PhD in Photonics from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in 2006. He then joined ASML and worked in the Technical Development division within the Imaging System Department (Projection Lens Group) until 2010, contributing to the optical imaging system design of advanced lithography platforms. This experience gave him direct insight into how large-scale, high-precision semiconductor equipment is engineered, integrated, and brought into industrial production.

After leaving ASML, Dr. Zhang founded Vision & Action B.V. (V&A) in the Netherlands, focusing on R&D services and industrial incubation between Europe and China in photonics and clean technologies. For more than a decade, he has worked with high-tech companies and research organizations to translate advanced engineering capabilities into practical and sustainable industrial applications across different sectors and institutional environments. Alongside his entrepreneurial activities, he has continued to study industrial upgrading and the formation of innovation clusters. His work emphasizes that major industrial breakthroughs do not arise from isolated technologies alone, but from the long-term accumulation of engineering competence, entrepreneurial initiative, and stable yet open innovation ecosystems.