Whitehouse Quietly Tightens Grip on Exports of Chipmaking Gear to Communist China

From July 30th 2022, according to two major US semiconductor equipment suppliers, the US is tightening measures to control the export of chipmaking equipment to Communist China, in alignment with White House’s intention to contain the CCP’s semiconductor ambitions.

Previously, the Whitehouse had banned the sale to Communist China’s chip makers of most equipment capable of fabricating chips of 10 nanometres or larger. Now the ban extended to 14 nanometres and less. The latest measures not only apply to CCP’s largest Chip maker SMIC, short for Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. This latest barrier to the equipment has also extended to other fabrication plants run by contractors. This is likely to impact on TSMC, the Taiwan based and world’s largest chip foundry.

In the last two weeks, all US based chip maker were formally notified of the new restrictions, which is clear confirmation the Biden administration is seriously attempting to contain the CCP’s ambition. Additionally, the US is pushing partner countries like the Netherlands and Japan to ban ASML Holding NV and Nikon Corp., from selling to Communist China essential mainstream technologies to mass-produce large portions of semiconductor chips.