US mulling new Chinese sanctions on HBM chips
The Biden administration could extend its export restrictions to China to cover advanced memory chips including HBM3 and HBM3E.
According to Bloomberg, the US government wants to limit China’s access to AI memory chips and equipment capable of making those semiconductors as soon as next month. If it goes ahead, it will keep Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung from supplying Chinese firms with HBM products, which run AI accelerators.
The report says US-based Micron would largely be unaffected as it doesn't sell to China anyway. But it's less clear how the US would restrict the South Korean firms. One option would be to use the rule that impacts foreign-made products that use even the tiniest amount of American technology.
The new restrictions could apply in weeks as part of a broader package that also includes sanctions against more than 120 Chinese firms and fresh limits on various types of chip equipment.
Bloomberg believes the impact of any ban on SK Hynix and Samsung would be limited. It says SK Hynix’s HBM chips are mostly used with Nvidia’s most high-end GPUs, which are already restricted. Meanwhile Samsung's HBM sales are still too small to affect overall sales.
