US likely to cap level of South Korean chips made in China, says official

SEOUL – The United States will likely limit the level of advanced semiconductors made by South Korean companies in China, a senior US official said.

In October, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the world’s top memory chipmakers, received a one-year reprieve from

US export restrictions aimed at thwarting Beijing’s technological ambitions

and blocking its military advances.

“What will likely be is a cap on the levels that they can grow to in China,” said Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez, when asked what would happen after the waiver ended.

Mr Estevez, who oversees restrictions on tech exports to China, made the comments on Thursday during a forum hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank.

“If you are at whatever layer of Nand, we will stop it somewhere in that range,” Mr Estevez said, referring to a flash memory product manufactured by Samsung and SK Hynix.

He added that the US government was in deep dialogue with the South Korean chipmakers.

“We work with them to ensure that we are not going to harm our allies’ companies. At the same time, we are going to impede the Chinese capability of building capabilities that are going to threaten us collectively,” he said.

Samsung and SK Hynix, which control about half of the global Nand flash memory chip market, have invested heavily in China in recent decades to produce chips that are vital to customers, including tech giants Apple and Amazon.

Earlier, an American official acknowledged the existence of a deal with Japan and the Netherlands for those countries to impose new restrictions on exports of chipmaking tools to China. REUTERS