WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is putting pressure on China's top chip maker.
US suppliers to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) will no longer be allowed to supply products to the company's most advanced plant, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The government has canceled the export concessions.
The US government and Huawei declined to comment on the matter. SMIC could not be reached for comment. The Chinese embassy in Washington described the move as “blatant economic bullying that will inevitably backfire.”
SMIC develops processors for Huawei's flagship smartphone model “Mate 60 Pro”. Although the United States has for years restricted the export of advanced technology to slow China's technological and military development, experts say they are technologically equivalent to Western products. Huawei and SMIC have been on the US sanctions list since 2019 and 2020, respectively.
After the recent tightening of regulations, the Chinese chipmaker may switch to suppliers from China and other countries such as Japan or South Korea, said Lida Shon-Roi, president of Techset research firm. However, experts believe that production at the “SMIC South” plant, capable of producing cutting-edge smartphone chips, could be delayed by up to nine months. Products from new suppliers should be extensively tested.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alber and Karen Freifeld; Writing by Hakan Ersson; Editing by Hans Bussmann; If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and economics) or [email protected] ( (for companies and markets)
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