U.S. Department of Commerce adds more than 30 Chinese companies and entities, including Chinese semiconductor maker YMTC, to its de facto embargo list
🟦 YMTC embargo for Chinese domestic NAND companies to be added to the list
The Biden administration will add more than 30 Chinese companies and organizations, including Chinese NAND semiconductor maker YMTC to the de facto embargo list of entities. YMTC was added to the unverified list for licenses by U.S. companies to develop and export advanced technologies to China in October 2022. If the concern did not disappear after a certain grace period, it was a measure to include it in the export ban list. Therefore, the US government judges that there is no improvement and seems to make YMTC subject to an embargo. As a result, applications for the export of U.S. products will in principle be rejected by the Department of Commerce.
🟦 Expanding export restrictions not only for advanced semiconductors
The U.S. is expanding its ban on exports of advanced semiconductor technology to Chinese companies, citing fears that semiconductors using U.S. technology will be diverted to military and weapons development. The U.S. government has already added Huawei and semiconductor foundry SMIC to the entity list and strictly restricts the export of manufacturing equipment. Until now, it was for transactions in advanced technologies such as supercomputers. However, with this measure, the target of regulation will be not only advanced semiconductors, but also manufacturing equipment, design software, and human resources.
YMTC is a Chinese NAND flash memory company that receives a large amount of money from the Chinese sovereign wealth fund. Compared to the world’s major NAND companies Samsung, Kioxia, SK Hynix and Micron, the technology development capabilities are still about two generations behind. It is a fast-growing company with plans to supply NAND memory to Apple’s iPhone 2 for China in 2022.
🟦Summary
Expanding the scope of the export ban beyond advanced semiconductors, the U.S. administration adds the Chinese semiconductor YMTC to the de facto embargo list
On December 2022, 12, China filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO), claiming that the U.S. export restrictions on advanced semiconductors to China were unjustified. In the 12s, when there was a semiconductor trade friction between Japan and the United States, the Japan government tried to file a lawsuit, but was unable to do so. I guess it’s a national character.
