Taiwanese memorychip makers might benefit from the US’ latest restrictions on exports of advanced computing chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China as the ban aims to thwart Chinese chip companies’ advancement, analysts said yesterday.
The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) on Friday broadened the scope of semiconductor export restrictions to logic chips made on 16-nanometer, 14-nanometer and more advanced technologies.
The new rules also apply to advanced DRAM memory chips of 18-nanometer half-pick or less, as well as NAND flash memory chips with 128 layers or more, the bureau said.
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
With its access to US semiconductor technology blocked, “China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc’s [CXMT, 長鑫存儲] technological advances will be hindered,” said Avril Wu (吳雅婷), a vice president at market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技).
“That will allow Nanya Technology Corp [南亞科技] to gain a competitive edge,” Wu said. “This is a good example we can see in the memorychip sector so far.”
However, Wu warned that CXMT might enhance its promotions to vie for a bigger share of the home market to counteract the effect of US controls.
That would pose a risk to Nanya Technology given its high exposure to the Chinese market, she said.
The New Taipei City-based chipmaker has said that about 20 to 30 percent of its chips are directly shipped to its Chinese customers.
Nanya Technology, the nation’s biggest DRAM chipmaker, on Tuesday said the export controls would be a boon to local memorychip suppliers, as they could hamper Chinese memorychip manufacturers’ technological progress.
The rules could also negatively affect its Chinese customers, but Nanya Technology would not be the only memorychip supplier affected, it added.
However, it is too early to say to what extent the impact of the US restrictions would be, given a lack of information and details about the new BIS rules, the company said.
Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) also expects that Washington’s new measures would “help improve memory sector dynamics,” it said in a research report yesterday.
Yuanta did not say which companies would benefit from the US’ new semiconductor curbs.
The BIS restrictions would negatively impact the artificial intelligence and high-performance computing-related advanced process supply chain, Chinese memorychip and related equipment suppliers, Yuanta said in the report.
Foundries will now be unable to sell and provide services to the Chinese market, Yuanta said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) comments on the impact from the US restrictions would be the market’s focus today, coupled with the chipmaker’s business outlook and overseas fab construction progress, Yuanta said.
TSMC, the world’s biggest foundry service provider, is holding an investor conference today. Chinese customers contributed 13 percent to TSMC’s revenue in the second quarter, company data showed.
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