Bloomberg News reported that the US Biden administration is pushing for stronger controls over the export of semiconductor equipment to China.
The US government has reportedly briefed US companies on the plan and told them it expects to announce new export controls as early as next month.
The introduction of the new regulations could double the number of equipment requiring special permits to export to China, sources said.
The US government had already issued regulations in October last year effectively banning the export of equipment needed to produce advanced semiconductors to China.
Export controls, newly promoted this time, are also designed to be coordinated with the governments of the Netherlands and Japan, other semiconductor equipment powerhouses.
Currently, there are 17 semiconductor equipment that need permission to export to China, but that number is expected to double if the Netherlands and Japan join export controls.
The Biden administration has no intention of relaxing the original plan, even if the Netherlands and Japan introduce export controls of a weaker intensity than the United States, a source said.
There are three major semiconductor equipment manufacturers in the United States: Applied Materials, KLA, and Lam Research.
Together with Japan’s Tokyo Electron and the Netherlands’ ASML, these three companies dominate the semiconductor equipment industry, and cutting-edge semiconductor production is impossible without products from these three countries.
Bloomberg predicts that semiconductor equipment companies will face more difficulties if the United States strengthens export controls at a time when they are already experiencing difficulties in Chinese business due to the US measures last October.
YTN Taehyeon Kim (kimth@ytn.co.kr)
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