Samsung, SK Hynix Likely To Face Further Manufacturing Restrictions

wccftech.com:

South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix - two of the world's biggest semiconductor manufacturers- are likely to face further restrictions concerning China's product manufacturing capaiblies. Samsung and SK Hynix specialize in manufacturing memory chips, and have manufacturing facilities in China where they produce the products alongside local firms such as the Yangtze Memory Technologies Co Ltd. (YMTC) and Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT). Fresh comments for new restrictions were made by a Commerce department official on Thurdsay in Washington during a think tank session.

If they become official, the new regulations will become the latest in a series of steps that successiveadminsitrations have taken to counter Chinese use of advanced chipmaking technologies for military purposes. The U.S. has already sanctioned China's largest chip maker, the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and chipmakers such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing COmpany (TSMC) are prohibited from supplying advanced chips with feature sizes smaller than 7-nanomter to the country.

Last year, in a fresh set of sweeping regulations, the Commerce Department added new rules that prohibited U.S. citizens and persons from developing or producing chips at some facilities in China without a license. These also made shipping chip manufacturing equipment to facilities producing chips smaller than 16-nanometers and 14-nanomters and advanced memory chips subject to a license - a decision that shook the industry as firms such as Samsung and SK Hynix worried about their existing Chinese operations.

While the U.S. is only one of the world's major chip manufacturing countries, it has a host of different companies that ship products crucial