WASHINGTON (Realist English). The United States is considering limiting shipments of American chipmaking equipment to memory chip makers in China including, Reuters reports with reference to four anonymous informed sources.
Due to export controls, the US will try to restrict Chinese production of memory chips with no specialized military use. The restrictions include a ban on the supply of American equipment for the production of chips to factories in China that produce advanced NAND chips.
If President Joe Biden’s administration proceeds with the move, it could also hurt South Korean memory chip juggernauts Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Hynix Inc. Samsung has two big factories in China while SK Hynix Inc is buying Intel Corp’s (INTC.O) NAND flash memory chips manufacturing business in China.
As of now, the White House is considering this issue at the initial stage, and the legal regulations have not yet been developed.
Earlier, the US Congress passed a law according to which the White House will allocate $280 billion for the production of microchips and create new jobs in the relevant industry. Washington hopes that such steps will help the country get rid of the dependence on China, which in recent years has become a leader in the production of semiconductors.
Tensions between China and the United States over the technology sector intensified under former President Donald Trump and have continued ever since.
