Rumours insist on the intention of the US authorities to impose new restrictions on the supply to China of American-born goods and technologies that could accelerate technological progress, which may affect not only US companies, but preliminary indications suggest that Korean memory producers will retain the ability to produce products in China and expand their businesses by applying to the US for appropriate licences.
According to Reuters, with reference to their own sources of knowledge, foreign companies with manufacturing capacity in China will be able to continue business related to technologies of American origin if they receive individual approval from the U.S. authorities. It is believed that, under such conditions, Korean companies Samsung Electronics and SK hynix will be able to continue to work at the PRC. The first in China produces up to 38% of all hard memory, and the second up to 25% of hard memory and up to 50% of the operating memory chip.
In general, the source explains that restrictions on the supply to China will affect equipment that allows the production of operational memory chips according to 18 nm or more lithographic standards, in the case of solid memory, the watershed line will follow the number of layers of 128 chips, while for logical chips and processors the threshold of 14 nm is set. If the equipment supplied to China allows the production of chips according to more severe standards, it is not necessary to reconcile such deliveries with the U.S. authorities. It is assumed that for companies outside U.S. jurisdiction, the issue of export licences will be considered on a case-by-case basis, in which case the criteria for compliance with specific nanometers will not play a decisive role.
The main objective of the new sanctions package is to curb the technological development of Chinese companies, and it is believed that the new sanctions could complicate the activities of China's largest solid memory producer YMTC and local manufacturer of the CXMT operating memory chip.