U.S. considers crackdown on memory chip makers in China

By Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The USA is contemplating limiting shipments of American chipmaking gear to reminiscence chip makers in China together with Yangtze Reminiscence Applied sciences Co Ltd (YMTC), in keeping with 4 folks conversant in the matter, a part of a bid to halt China’s semiconductor sector advances and shield U.S. corporations.

    If President Joe Biden’s administration proceeds with the transfer, it may additionally damage South Korean reminiscence chip juggernauts Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Hynix Inc, the sources stated, talking on situation of anonymity. Samsung has two huge factories in China whereas SK Hynix Inc is shopping for Intel Corp’s NAND flash reminiscence chips manufacturing enterprise in China.

    The crackdown, if accredited, would contain barring the cargo of U.S. chipmaking gear to factories in China that manufacture superior NAND chips.

It might mark the primary U.S. bid by way of export controls to focus on Chinese language manufacturing of reminiscence chips with out specialised navy functions, representing a extra expansive view of American nationwide safety, in keeping with export management specialists.

    The transfer additionally would search to guard the one U.S. reminiscence chip producers, Western Digital Corp and Micron Know-how Inc, which collectively symbolize a couple of quarter of the NAND chips market.

NAND chips retailer information in units corresponding to smartphones and private computer systems and at information facilities for the likes of Amazon, Fb and Google. What number of gigabytes of information a telephone or laptop computer can maintain is set by what number of NAND chips it consists of and the way superior they’re.

    Underneath the motion being thought of, U.S. officers would ban the export of instruments to China used to make NAND chips with greater than 128 layers, in keeping with two of the sources. LAM Analysis Corp and Utilized Supplies, each primarily based in Silicon Valley, are the first suppliers of such instruments.

All of the sources described the administration’s consideration of the matter as within the early phases, with no proposed rules but drafted.

Requested to touch upon the potential transfer, a spokesperson for the Commerce Division, which oversees export controls, didn’t talk about potential restrictions however famous that “the Biden administration is targeted on impairing (China’s) efforts to fabricate superior semiconductors to handle vital nationwide safety dangers to the US.”

FAST-GROWING COMPANY

YMTC, based in 2016, is a rising energy in manufacturing NAND chips. Micron and Western Digital are underneath strain from YMTC’s low costs, because the White Home wrote in a June 2021 report https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/100-day-supply-chain-review-report.pdf. YMTC’s growth and low-price choices current “a direct menace” to Micron and Western Digital, that report stated. The report described YMTC as China’s “nationwide champion” and the recipient of some $24 billion in Chinese language subsidies.

YMTC, already underneath investigation by the Commerce Division over whether or not it violated U.S. export controls by promoting chips to Chinese language telecoms firm Huawei, is in talks with Apple Inc to produce the highest U.S. smartphone maker with flash reminiscence chips, in keeping with a Bloomberg report.

LAM Analysis Corp, SK Hynix and Micron declined touch upon the U.S. coverage. Samsung, Utilized Supplies Inc, YMTC and Western Digital Corp didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

CONGRESS ACTS

Tensions between China and the US over the tech sector deepened underneath Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump and have continued since. Reuters reported on July 8 that Biden’s administration can also be contemplating restrictions on shipments to China of instruments to make superior logic chips, searching for to hamstring China’s largest chipmaker, SMIC.

The U.S. Congress final week accredited laws aimed toward serving to the US compete with China by investing billions of {dollars} in home chip manufacturing.

Chipmakers that take cash underneath the measure can be prohibited from constructing or increasing manufacturing for sure superior chips, together with superior reminiscence chips at a stage to be decided by the administration, in international locations together with China.

    In line with Walt Coon of the consulting agency Yole Intelligence, YMTC accounts for about 5% of worldwide NAND flash reminiscence chip manufacturing, virtually double from a 12 months in the past. Western Digital stands at about 13% and Micron 11%. Coon stated YMTC can be enormously damage by restrictions like people who Biden’s administration is considering.

“In the event that they have been caught at 128, I do not understand how they’d actually have a path ahead,” Coon stated.

Manufacturing of NAND chips in China has grown to greater than 23% of the worldwide whole this 12 months from underneath 14% in 2019, whereas manufacturing in the US has decreased from 2.3% to 1.6% over the identical interval, Yole information confirmed. For the American corporations, almost all of their chip manufacturing is completed abroad.

It was unclear what impression the potential restrictions might need on different gamers in China. Intel, which retains a contract to handle operations within the manufacturing facility it’s promoting to SK Hynix in China, is already producing reminiscence chips with 144 layers on the Chinese language website, in keeping with an Intel press launch.

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld; Extra reporting by Stephen Nellis; Enhancing by Chris Sanders and Will Dunham)