The sanctions are having a huge impact:
[...] According to China's General Administration of Customs data published Tuesday (via The South China Morning Post), the country imported 67.6 billion integrated circuits (IC) in January and February. That's down 26.5% from the same period last year, and higher than the 15.3% fall recorded for the entirety of 2022.
The total value of these imports also declined, from $68.8 billion last year to $47.8 billion, a drop of 30.5%. That's partly due to chip prices that have fallen due to oversupply and the general economic downturn.
China's IC exports also fell in the first two months, down 20.9% to 37.3 billion units, while the total value of the exports dropped 25.8%.
The US has been tightening its restrictions on China's chip industry over the last 12 months, which the United States says will prevent its global rival from developing semiconductors for military applications, including supercomputers, nuclear weapons modeling, and hypersonic weapons.
October's restrictions on chipmaking tools from the Bureau of Industry and Security were some of the harshest, designed to cap China's logic chips at the 14-nanometre node, DRAM at 18nm, and 3D NAND flash at 128 layers. The US has also prohibited AMD and Nvidia from selling some of its high-performance AI-focused GPUs to China, including team green's A100 GPUs.
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China's cyberspace regulator said on Sunday that products made by U.S. memory chip manufacturer Micron Technology had failed its network security review and that it would bar operators of key infrastructure from procuring from the firm:
The decision, announced amid a dispute over chip technology between Washington and Beijing, could include sectors ranging from transport to finance, according to China's broad definition of critical information infrastructure.
"The review found that Micron's products have serious network security risks, which pose significant security risks to China's critical information infrastructure supply chain, affecting China's national security," the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement.
[...] U.S. officials, including members of a U.S. congressional select committee on competition with China, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Micron derives around 10% of its revenue from China, but it is not clear if the decision affects the company's sales to non-Chinese customers in the country.
Also at The Register, MarketWatch and ABC News.
Related:
- US Restrictions See China's Chip Imports Plummet 27% in First Two Months of 2023
- Netherlands Refuses to Summarily Agree to US Export Restrictions on China Over Silicon Chips
- US Chip Makers Hit by New China Export Rule
