In this illustration taken on February 17, 2023, a Chinese flag is displayed next to a “Made in China” logo on a printed circuit board with semiconductor wafers.
Florence | Reuters
The United States will launch its third crackdown on China’s semiconductor industry in three years on Monday, restricting exports to 140 companies including chip equipment manufacturers. Northern Huachuang Technology Groupamong other moves, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Efforts to thwart Beijing’s chipmaking ambitions will also hit Chinese chip tool makers Piotek SiCarrier Technology has instituted new export restrictions as part of a plan that also aims to ship advanced memory chips and more chipmaking tools to China.
The move marks one of the last large-scale actions by the Biden administration to block China’s ability to obtain and produce chips that could help advance military applications of artificial intelligence or otherwise threaten U.S. national security.
Just weeks before Republican former President Trump is sworn in, Trump is expected to continue implementing many of Biden’s tougher measures against China.
The plan includes restrictions on the export of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to China, which are critical for high-end applications such as artificial intelligence training; new restrictions on 24 additional chip manufacturing tools and three software tools; and restrictions on countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. New export restrictions imposed on manufactured wafer fabrication equipment.
Tool controls may be harmed Pan-forest research, Cora and Applied Materialsand non-U.S. companies such as Dutch equipment manufacturers ASM International.
Chinese companies facing new restrictions include nearly two dozen semiconductor companies, two investment firms and more than 100 chipmaking tool makers, sources said.
U.S. lawmakers said some companies, including Swaysure Technology Co, Qingdao SiEn and Shenzhen Pensun Technology Co, are working with China’s Huawei Technologies Co Center for production and development.
They will be added to the Entity List, which prohibits U.S. suppliers from shipping to them without first obtaining special permission.
In recent years, China has stepped up efforts to become self-sufficient in its semiconductor industry as the United States and other countries restricted exports of advanced chips and their manufacturing tools. However, it is still years behind the chip industry leaders NVIDIA AI chip and chip equipment manufacturers ASML in the Netherlands.
The United States is also preparing to impose more restrictions SMICChina’s largest contract chip manufacturer, the company was placed on the Entity List in 2020, but the policy allowed it to issue billions of dollars worth of cargo transportation licenses.
For the first time, the United States has added two companies investing in chips to its entity list. Chinese private equity firms Zhilu Capital and Technology Wingtech Technology Co., Ltd. will be added.
Companies seeking to ship to companies on the Entity List are often denied.
One aspect of the new package involving foreign direct products rules could harm the interests of some U.S. allies by limiting what their companies can ship to China. The new rules would expand U.S. power to restrict U.S., Japanese and Dutch manufacturers from exporting chip-making equipment made elsewhere in the world to certain Chinese chip factories.
Devices made in Malaysia, Singapore, Israel, Taiwan and South Korea are subject to the rule, while the Netherlands and Japan are exempt.
The expanded foreign direct product rules will apply to 16 companies on the Entity List that are seen as most important to China’s state-of-the-art chipmaking ambitions.
The rule would also determine when the U.S. content of certain foreign items subject to U.S. control drops to zero. This would allow the U.S. to regulate anything shipped from overseas to China that contains U.S. chips.
The new rules come after lengthy discussions with Japan and the Netherlands, which together with the United States dominate the production of advanced wafer-making equipment.
The United States plans to exempt countries that have implemented similar controls, people familiar with the matter said.
Another rule in the plan limits the memory used in artificial intelligence chips that correspond to so-called “HBM 2” and higher versions of technology made by Samsung and South Korea. SK hynix and American Micron. Industry insiders only predict Samsung Electronics affected.
The latest rules are the third major measure implemented by the Biden administration targeting restrictions on Chinese chip-related exports. In October 2022, the United States issued a series of comprehensive control measures to restrict the sales and manufacturing of certain high-end chips. This is considered to be the biggest shift in U.S. science and technology policy toward China since the 1990s.
