U.S. chip export controls heating up
- Micron is lobbying Congress for tighter restrictions on semiconductor equipment sales to Chinese rivals. - Lawmakers are advancing the MATCH Act to limit Commerce Department discretion and specifically target tools like DUV lithography machines. - Making export controls statutory would raise compliance complexity for equipment suppliers and global fabs ( ).
Congress is moving to hard-code new chip-tool export bans into law, a step that would take discretion away from the Commerce Department and tighten pressure on Chinese semiconductor makers. (congress.gov) The House version of the MATCH Act, H.R. 8170, was introduced on April 2 by Rep. Michael Baumgartner and 10 cosponsors, then sent to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. A Senate companion, S. 4281, was introduced on April 13 by Sens. Pete Ricketts, Andy Kim, Jim Risch and Chuck Schumer and referred to the Banking Committee. (congress.gov, congress.gov) The bill targets semiconductor manufacturing equipment, the factory tools used to print and etch circuits onto silicon wafers. Lawmakers have focused on deep ultraviolet, or DUV, lithography machines, a class of tools that Chinese chipmakers have still been able to buy even after earlier U.S. and allied restrictions hit more advanced systems. (tomshardware.com, cnbc.com) That is a shift from the current system, where the Bureau of Industry and Security inside Commerce writes and updates export rules. Congress’s own research service says the U.S. has been tightening semiconductor controls on China since 2018, with a major Commerce package issued on October 7, 2022. (congress.gov, bis.doc.gov) The new push comes as Micron is pressing lawmakers to go further and make some of those restrictions statutory rather than regulatory, according to a Reuters report published April 22. The same report said the company wants tighter limits on sales of chipmaking equipment to Chinese rivals. (reuters.com) The Senate bill’s text names ChangXin Memory Technologies, Hua Hong Semiconductor, Huawei, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Yangtze Memory Technologies as companies that “warrant comprehensive export controls” because of their role in advanced-node chip efforts. It also says firms in “adversary countries” that make chip equipment should not be allowed to benefit from U.S. or allied technology. (congress.gov) China has been trying to replace foreign tools with domestic ones as Washington and its allies tighten access. Tom’s Hardware reported this month that Yangtze Memory Technologies’ third Wuhan fab is expected to cross a 50% local-tooling threshold, underscoring why U.S. lawmakers are now looking beyond the very top end of the equipment market. (tomshardware.com, congress.gov) For equipment suppliers and global chip factories, a law would be harder to adjust than an agency rule. That would leave less room for case-by-case licensing decisions, more need to map parts and customers against named restrictions, and a longer compliance trail for companies that sell tools, components and services across borders. (tomshardware.com, congress.gov) The politics are also broadening. The House bill has Republican and Democratic cosponsors, and the Senate version pairs Ricketts and Risch with Kim and Schumer, a sign that tougher chip controls on China are moving deeper into bipartisan statute-making rather than staying inside Commerce rulemakings. (congress.gov, congress.gov) The next test is whether Congress leaves the MATCH Act as a pressure campaign on Commerce or turns it into binding law. If it advances, chip export controls will be set less by regulators writing rules and more by lawmakers writing the tool list themselves. (congress.gov, tomshardware.com)
