4DS - Anything but Charting, page-31599

How can you steal the tech and roll it out?

ASML are the only company in the world that make the fabrication machines complex enough to do the work. Their machines have the strictest export controls.

IMEC are a centralised/shared development organisation.

The know-how for this sort of work rests with a few companies, who pretty much all JV with each other at some point in time.

The industry is big in dollar value but tiny in the number of people who work in it. Working in a niche sector myself, screwing over competitors doesn't work that well, you just get a rep for being a dick and when a JV is required for a big project, nobody wants to work with you.