Semiconductor companies are still awaiting licensing decisions on their chip-related activities involving China under the U.S.’s new export controls, with some concerned that licenses awarded to their competitors could hurt their revenue. In earnings calls and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission this month, U.S. chip and technology companies said they continue to prepare for drops in sales to China and that they fear Chinese customers may soon replace them with alternative suppliers, causing some U.S. companies to permanently lose their market share in China.
Unverified List Updates
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking public comments on an information collection involving the procedure for entities on the Unverified List or Entity List to request removal or “modification” of their placement on either list. Public comments on the collection are due Jan. 24.
The Bureau of Industry and Security’s new Unverified List policies, which allow the agency to move a company from the UVL to the Entity List if it can’t complete an end-use check within 60 days, likely will lead to an uptick in companies added to the Entity List, said Nazak Nikahtar, former acting BIS undersecretary. Nikakhtar said she believes many Chinese companies added to the UVL won’t participate in an end-use check that meets the U.S.’s standards.
The new U.S. chip controls against China (see 2210070049 and 2211010042) mark a “major escalation” in the U.S.-China technology war and will likely have a significant effect on China’s technology capabilities, Bank of America said this week. The bank also warned that the controls, which are “more comprehensive and stricter than what we have seen in the past,” could ultimately open the “door to more sweeping restrictions in other domains like leading edge manufacturing.”
The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is asking the Commerce Department to provide its licensing data and communications with chip companies, along with a broad swathe of related information, to make sure the agency is implementing its new China controls “fairly across all market players.”
Although the new U.S. export controls against China are likely to have minimal impacts on the U.S. semiconductor industry, a broader implementation of the controls could quickly raise costs on U.S. and allied suppliers and hurt the domestic chip industry, the Rhodium Group said in a report this month. The research firm said damages to semiconductor companies “could balloon quickly under a tightening of controls,” which it believes is “highly plausible.”
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Apple has suspended plans to use memory chips from China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. in its products, Nikkei Asia reported Oct. 17. The report comes days after YMTC was added to the Commerce Department’s Unverified List (see 2210070006) and after the agency announced a sweeping set of China-related export controls (see 2210070049). If Commerce can’t complete an end check of YMTC within 60 days after its addition to the UVL, the Chinese company may be moved to the more restrictive Entity List.
New advanced computing and chip export controls against China (see 2210070049) represent an “unprecedented degree” of U.S. intervention to preserve technology leadership and could deal a major blow to China’s semiconductor industry, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report last week. But there are several “lingering gaps” in the new policy that the Bureau of Industry and Security should “swiftly” address if it hopes to make the rules as effective as possible, the report said, including adding more companies to the Entity List, making sure the restrictions are adopted by allies and ensuring the agency is properly staffed.
China this week criticized the U.S. decision to increase export controls on technology destined to the country (see 2210070049) and add more Chinese entities to the Unverified List (see 2210070006), calling the moves “a typical practice of technological bullying.” China’s Ministry of Commerce said “it not only violates the spirit of cooperation between the two sides and ignores the facts of cooperation between the two sides, but also seriously hinders the normal economic and trade exchanges between Chinese and American enterprises,” according to an unofficial translation of a statement.