BIS Waiting on More Clarity From Trump Admin Before Issuing Chip Control FAQs

BIS has already drafted several frequently asked questions and answers for its chips rules and is working on others, officials said, including for the agency’s Dec. 2 rule that placed new restrictions on certain foreign-made chip equipment (see 2412020016 and 2412030022) and the foundry due diligence rule in January that created new lists of trusted chip designers and service providers (see 2501150040).

But the agency is awaiting approval from the new Trump administration before publishing those FAQs.

“I think we all feel, internally, a lot of pressure to get these out,” said the official, speaking this week on the condition of anonymity under a policy for certain career personnel at the BIS annual conference. “I think this is another thing that's going to have to work its way through the transition process and just ensure that anything we're doing, any policy guidance that we're issuing from here, sort of works its way through that.”

BIS has so far drafted “a lot of FAQs” specifically on its semiconductor-related export controls, the person said, adding that the agency is seeing “a lot of intensely burning questions.” But the officials also declined to answer questions about the BIS artificial intelligence diffusion rule issued earlier this year (see 2501130026), and one person said BIS officials were told to keep their comments “as factual” as possible during the conference and not speculate about possible changes.

“We want to clarify things as well,” an official said, “but we just want to make sure that everything is done in a harmonious way and is clear and consistent with the new administration's policies.”

BIS canceled a March 19 conference panel that was set to discuss the AI diffusion rule. The Trump administration is expected to at least revise the rule before it takes effect in May (see 2503170001 and 2503110027).

Officials during the conference instead focused on other chip rules recently issued by BIS. One of the “highest-priority” FAQs being drafted by the agency will provide more guidance on how it defines the term “headquartered,” one official said. Technology companies and researchers have asked BIS to clarify the term in some of its recent regulations, which in some cases impose stringent license requirements if the end user or its parent company is “headquartered” in China or another region subject to strict controls (see 2402020050).

“We have a lot of comments on this, a lot of very significant questions,” the official said. “I absolutely expect that we will address this in some more fulsome way.”

Other FAQs will address the BIS list of “approved” semiconductor designers published in the January foundry due diligence rule, which includes vetted companies that are carved out from certain license requirements for advanced chips captured by Export Control Classification Number 3A090. The agency is specifically looking to provide guidance about whether subsidiaries are covered if their parent company is named on the list.

“It gets a little complicated, so I don't want to get too far into the details here,” an official said, “but there are at least some cases where a subsidiary would be covered.”

BIS published the list of approved integrated circuit designers, another list of approved semiconductor assembly and test companies, and a separate category of “authorized” chip designers, which are firms based in certain friendly countries but which BIS hasn’t yet “individually vetted,” a Commerce official said. The person said companies will benefit from “authorized” chip designer status until April 2026, and they urged companies to apply to become an “approved” designer before then.

“It would definitely be worth thinking about whether you should apply, because you can apply to get onto” the approved list, the official said, adding, “That's a way for us to start building out a comprehensive white list of IC designers whose attestations can be trusted.”

Another official stressed that a company’s placement on the “approved” designer list doesn’t expire, but companies can apply to be removed from the list or inform BIS about a “modification” to their business, such as new ownership.

“We would love for people, for IC designers, to come in and start going through that [application] process,” the official said.

The person added that BIS doesn’t yet know how long approvals will take. “We're early days. I don't think we have good data on that,” they said. “But we would certainly want to move expeditiously.”

Another Commerce official said BIS is receiving many questions about the red-flag guidance in the agency’s foundry due diligence rule, including one red flag that warns U.S. suppliers that a restricted chip fab may look to evade export controls by building a physical “bridge” or tunnel to another building or facility that isn’t restricted (see 2412060005). The restricted fab may then use that connected building to acquire export-controlled U.S. items.

In that situation, BIS said the unrestricted company would be considered subject to the same controls as the connected facility.

“We want to draw a presumption that, until that connective tissue or that kind of connection is deemed not relevant for purposes of producing” controlled chips, “they should be treated as the same facility,” the official said. The person said BIS has been getting “lots of questions about this,” and companies with questions must submit an advisory opinion request to the agency to resolve the issue.

“We would expect exporters to come in, explain the connection, explain what happens at each facility, and potentially, then you could have some kind of a connection resolved through the advisory opinion process,” the official said.