Media reports suggest the US has sanctioned SMIC, China’s largest chip manufacturer. An article in FT indicated that companies that exports to Shanghai Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) posed an “unacceptable risk” of being diverted to “military end use”.
SMIC is one of the biggest chip-makes on planet and is supplier for both Qualcomm Inc. and Broadcom Inc. among others.
SMIC makes chips the empower devices including mobiles, telecom base stations and tablets and is the backbone of global supply chain.
However, SMIC still relies on U.S. exports for equipment and software to perform steps in the chip production process such as printing circuits and quality control.
On its part SMIC maintains that it has not received any official word on the sanction and as per the FT report it “has no relationship with the Chinese military, and does not manufacture for any military end-users or end-uses.”
The ban on SMIC is the latest in round of actions that Trump administration is in process of sanctioning Chinese Companies operating in technological sphere. Last year the Huawei too was sanctioned in a similar manner.
