US tightens trade restrictions on Chinese chipmaker SMIC
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The US Commerce Department has added China’s largest chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), to its entity list, after it determined there an “unacceptable risk” that equipment SMIC received could be used for military purposes, Reuters reported.
The move blocks US computer chip companies from exporting technology to SMIC without an export license. SMIC is the latest major Chinese firm to be put on the entity list; the Trump administration added phone manufacturer Huawei to the list in 2019.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Commerce Department wrote in a letter to the computer chip industry on Friday that exporting products to SMIC would “pose an unacceptable risk of diversion to a military end...