China’s Chip Industry Braces for Further Sanctions With Concerns and Defiance
Chinese chip makers and suppliers, gathered in Shanghai for an industry event, were in a grim but defiant mood following a report that the U.S. plans to widen export controls targeting the industry. Among those already blacklisted, Yangtze Memory Technologies urged suppliers to show “integrity" and deliver machinery parts it had already purchased.
“We can’t get the components, which we have bought legally," said Nanxiang Chen, YMTC’s chairman and acting CEO. The company is China’s leading maker of flash memory chips. Such chips are essential in all kinds of electronic devices including computers and smartphones.
His comment was a rare public acknowledgment of the challenges YMTC has faced since being hit by U.S. sanctions late last year. In October YMTC was placed on the Commerce Department’s “unverified list" as a company of concern.
It was affected, too, by U.S. curbs on China’s chip sector, including restrictions on exports of any technology, tools or machinery that China could use to manufacture advanced semiconductors. The curbs also restricted the ability of “U.S.
persons" to support the development or production of some of the most cutting-edge chips in China. That led U.S. makers of semiconductor-manufacturing equipment to withdraw employees who had been based at YMTC to maintain highly technical tools.
In December, YMTC was moved to the Commerce Department’s “entity list," meaning U.S. exporters need to obtain a license before selling the company goods or services. In his speech Thursday, the opening day of the three-day Semicon China semiconductor-industry conference, Chen also suggested that tool makers buy back some of the equipment they have sold to YMTC.
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