US penalises two Chinese companies that acquired tools for chipmaker SMIC

The US on Friday (Sep 12) penalised two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), including them among 32 entities that were added to the Commerce Department’s restricted trade list, according to a US government posting. Twenty-three of the 32 were in China.

GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing), the Federal Register posting said.

The SMIC companies were already on the Entity List and shipping US equipment to them requires licences, which likely would have been denied.

Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics Technology, which is involved in the production of high-performance computing chips, as well as associated companies and other entities in China, Singapore and Taiwan, were added to the list for acquiring US-origin items “in support of China’s military modernisation, for participating in China’s advanced computing and integrated manufacturing and distribution sectors, and directly supplying the military, government, and security apparatus of China”.

Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics also has supplied technology to Russian military end users, according to the Commerce Department, which put an additional restriction on the company.

The companies could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Entities in India, Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates also were added to the list, the posting showed. REUTERS