China fired the latest salvo in its escalating semiconductor war with the US by announcing that Micron Technology Inc.. has not passed the cybersecurity check in the country, writes Bloomberg.
On May 21, Beijing warned key infrastructure operators against buying Micron products, saying it found "
According to a statement from the Cyberspace Administration of China, these components entailed "
The tech sector has become a key national security battlefield between the two greatest economies - in December, Washington blacklisted Yangtze Memory Technologies Co.. , a Chinese state-owned flash memory manufacturer in Wuhan, effectively limiting China's ability in advanced 3D NAND chips.
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" “No foreign business operating in China should be deceived by this ploy.. This is pure political action and any company can be the next role model.”.
The move brings new uncertainty for other U.S. chipmakers selling their products to China, the world's largest semiconductor market.. Companies such as Qualcomm Inc.. Broadcom Inc.. and Intel Corp.. supply the country with billions of chips that are used in electronic products shipped worldwide.
Most of Micron's products are manufactured to industry standards, which means the ICs can be easily interchanged with those from competing manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics Co.. and SK Hynix Inc.. These two South Korean chip makers have factories in China.
Micron generated almost 11% of its revenue from China last fiscal year. While this is relatively low compared to other major tech companies, a significant portion of the world's electronics production goes through Chinese factories in one way or another, and China's move could damage relationships with Micron's customers..
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Recall that on October 7, 2022, the Joe Biden administration announced new restrictions on the sale to China of semiconductor technologies manufactured anywhere in the world using American equipment - to reduce China's access to critical technologies needed to produce computers or weapons..
In March, Japan announced it would curb exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, aligning its controls on technology trade with the U.S. move to limit China's ability to make advanced chips.. In April, it became known that the German government was discussing a ban on exports to China of German semiconductor chemicals used by Chinese companies to make chips..