In recent years, Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment giant ASML Holding (NASDAQ: ASML) has become something of a household name. When it comes to the manufacture of the world's most advanced computing chips, ASML is an absolutely critical technologist with a near-monopoly on lithography equipment that is used to craft microscopic features on silicon wafers, which later get cut up into chips.

There's also a much smaller, but also technologically dominant, semiconductor manufacturing equipment provider based in the Netherlands: BE Semiconductor (OTC: BESIY), or simply "Besi." Besi stock is up an astonishing 140% with just a month to go in 2023. Is it too late to buy?

Besi's equipment focuses on the long-overlooked "act two" of the semiconductor manufacturing process. For decades, chipmakers have poured countless billions of dollars into semiconductor wafer fabrication, also known as front-end manufacturing. A complex process involving many dozens to hundreds of steps, "fabs" create the silicon wafers with tiny features on them that dictate computing performance.

Continue reading

Source Fool.com