US President Joe Biden’s administration is weighing sanctions on several Chinese tech companies, including memory chipmaker Changxin Xinqiao Memory Technologies Inc (CXMT, 長鑫新橋) in a fresh bid to restrain Beijing’s development of advanced semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said.
The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is considering adding CXMT to its so-called Entity List, which restricts companies’ access to US technology, the sources said.
The BIS is also considering restricting five other Chinese firms, they said, adding that the list is not final.
Photo: Reuters
CXMT makes chips used in a wide range of products, including computer servers and smart vehicles. It competes with US-based Micron Technology Inc and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. Micron funded an advocacy group that has long pushed for CXMT to be restricted.
The BIS and White House National Security Council declined to comment.
“We actively endorse and promote free and fair competition,” CXMT said in a statement. “Our commitment to this principle is demonstrated by our strict compliance with all relevant laws and regulations, including US export regulations.”
The company said that its chips were used in “everyday consumer products, with a specific focus on civilian and commercial applications.”
The potential sanctions are a response by the Biden administration to a chip breakthrough that Huawei Technologies Co (華為) made last year, US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in an interview last week.
The US department is weighing a sanctions package on multiple firms, McCaul said, without naming CXMT.
Huawei launched a 5G phone last year with an advanced 7-nanometer semiconductor made in China. It was lauded as a significant breakthrough considering that the administration of former US president Donald Trump cut off Huawei’s access to leading global chipmakers in 2020 over national security concerns. The handset signaled that the country’s chip industry was further along than expected.
The Biden administration has stepped up use of the department’s Entity List to keep Chinese companies from obtaining the latest US technologies. US suppliers are blocked from selling certain advanced products, equipment and components to customers on the list unless they obtain a special license from the US Department of Commerce.
Several key Chinese tech companies are already subject to those sanctions, including Shenzhen-based Huawei, its chipmaking partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際) and lithography machine maker Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group (上海微電子). In 2022, Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (長江儲存科技) was added to the list.
Beyond the blacklisting, the US is urging allies to work more closely together to contain China’s rise. The Biden administration is pressing the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea and Japan to further tighten restrictions on China’s access to semiconductor technology.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
RSS