Washington, December 2 (IANS). The United States has announced a new semiconductor export control package against China. This includes restrictions on high-end chips for artificial intelligence (AI) and is likely to affect South Korean industry.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) unveiled the package on the Federal Register. This includes restrictions on the export of ‘high bandwidth memory’ (HBM) chips. Two South Korean firms – ‘Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix’ and ‘Micron Technology’ lead the global HBM market.
The package comes at a time when President Joe Biden is set to leave office on January 20 and President-elect Donald Trump is expected to take a tough policy stance on China. This is in line with Washington’s efforts to limit China’s access to key technologies on national security grounds, Yonhap news agency reported.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, “This action is the culmination of the Biden-Harris Administration’s targeted approach to, together with our allies and partners, the PRC’s ability to indigenously produce advanced technologies that pose a risk to our national security. is to disrupt.” PRC stands for the official name of China, the People’s Republic of China.
For the new package, BIS implemented foreign direct product rules, under which a product produced in a foreign country is also subject to sanctions if it is made using US technology, software or equipment.
The compliance date for the HBM ban is December 31. Targets chips with memory bandwidth density greater than two gigabytes per second per square millimeter, according to BIS.
The sanctions could affect Samsung as it ships some of its ABM products to China, while an immediate impact is not expected for SK Hynix, according to industry observers, as the company exports all of its HBM products to the United States.
BIS stressed the importance of restrictions on HBM objects for AI applications, which according to them could enable advanced military and intelligence applications, reducing barriers to entry for non-experts to develop weapons of mass destruction. Can, support offensive cyber operations and assist in the use of mass surveillance to abuse human rights.
The Commerce Department announced new controls on 24 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SMEs) and three types of software tools for developing or producing semiconductors. Along with this, it included 140 institutions related to China’s military modernization in its “entity list”.
–IANS
SCH/AS
