The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China.
GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said.
The SMIC companies were already on the Entity List and shipping US equipment to them requires licenses, which likely would have been denied.
Photo: AFP
Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics Co (上海復旦微電子), which is involved in the production of high-performance computing chips, as well as associated companies and other entities in China, Singapore and Taiwan were added to the list for acquiring US-origin items “in support of China’s military modernization, for participating in China’s advanced computing and integrated manufacturing and distribution sectors, and directly supplying the military, government and security apparatus of China.”
Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics also has supplied technology to Russian military end users, according to the US commerce department, which put an additional restriction on the company.
Entities in India, Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates also were added to the list, the posting showed.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Economic Affairs in a statement said that the Taiwan company added to the entity list is an office established by a Hong Kong firm, adding that it does not hold any import and export qualifications.
The ministry said it would verify whether the actual business operations of the company are consistent with its initial application, and called on Taiwanese companies to conduct due diligence, including end users and usage checks, when exporting goods.
The ministry said that it has this year held 16 campaigns to raise local companies’ export control awareness, with legal experts familiar with US export control and sanctions laws invited to explain regulations to businesses.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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