US Senator Marco Rubio calls on Biden to sanction Chinese chip firm Brite

investing.com:

By Alexandra Alper

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican lawmaker Marco Rubio on Wednesday urged the Biden administration to sanction Chinese chip design firm Brite Semiconductor over its ties to China's top sanctioned chipmaker and its work for Chinese military suppliers.

Reuters reported last week that Brite Semiconductor offers chip design services to at least six Chinese military suppliers and is part-owned by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China's largest chipmaker, which was blocked from receiving some U.S. technology over its apparent ties to the Chinese military industrial complex.

SMIC, which is also Brite's No.1 supplier, has denied any ties to China's military.

Despite those relationships, Brite maintains access to U.S. investment and technology, including chip design software from American firms such as Synopsys (NASDAQ:SNPS) and Cadence Design (NASDAQ:CDNS), Reuters reported.

In a letter dated Wednesday, first reported by Reuters, Rubio said the fact that Brite and other Chinese technology companies have relatively free access to American technology shows that the current export-control scheme is allowing China's rise as a technological power.

«Brite's example shows that swift action is needed now to prevent China's chip industrial base from growing stronger,» Rubio wrote in the letter addressed to Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo, citing the Reuters report. «I urge you to impose the same licensing requirements on Brite that are imposed on SMIC,» Rubio said.

A spokesperson for the Commerce Department declined to comment on the content of the letter but said the agency had received it and will «reply through appropriate channels.»

Brite, SMIC，and the Chinese foreign