Chipmaking

BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. semiconductor wafer maker AXT Inc said its Chinese subsidiary Beijing Tongmei had received initial export permits for shipping gallium arsenide and germanium substrates – compounds key to chipmaking – to certain customers.

Foxconn pulls out of $19 billion chipmaking project in Indiaedition.

India is “rolling out the red carpet” for the semiconductor industry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Friday in his home state of Gujarat as he pitched the country as a viable chipmaking hub to global investors.

Just days before the ban, Micron announced a plan to invest up to 500 billion yen (US$3.7 billion) in Japan in extreme ultraviolet technology, becoming the first chipmaker to bring the advanced chipmaking technology to Japan.

Last month, China retaliated against Western export controls with its own sweeping restrictions on gallium and germanium, two crucial chipmaking inputs.

Micron is the first US chipmaker to be targeted by Beijing following a series of export controls by Washington on certain American components and chipmaking tools to block them being used to advance China's military capabilities.

Since 2019 the US has limited Huawei’s access to essential chipmaking tools.

Taiwan’s Foxconn has withdrawn from a $19.5 billion semiconductor joint venture with Indian metals-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta, the Taiwanese firm said Monday, in a setback to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chipmaking plans for his country.

Tokyo’s decision, nonetheless, comes after the U.S. in October imposed sweeping restrictions on chipmaking tool exports to China citing concerns that Beijing planned to use advanced semiconductors to enhance its military power.

Beijing’s push to build a local chip industry is taking on greater intensity in recent years, as the U.S. and its allies try to constrain the export of advanced chips and chipmaking tools to China.

But overall, when you consider the long road ahead for building chipmaking ecosystems in the country, it’s perhaps not a surprise that AI chips are not really on the agenda today.

Chinese companies facing new restrictions include nearly two dozen semiconductor companies, two investment companies and over 100 chipmaking tool makers.

Chipmaking giant Nvidia rose 2.4% and GoogleтАЩs parent company, Alphabet, rose 1.3%.

Japan's exports rose to a record high in January, lifted by robust shipments of cars and chipmaking equipment, marking the second straight month of growth despite concerns about slowing global demand.

Many chipmaking tools do not share the unique characteristics of ASML’s EUV lithography machine.

Nvidia’s South Korea-based chipmaking partner SK Hynix saw its on Monday after it said the U.S.-based chipmaker asked it to move supply of its next-generation, high-bandwidth memory chips up by six months.

Previous efforts to build a chipmaking sector had mixed results, with some notable failures and corruption scandals.

The chipmaking giantis even wooing small developers to get on the AI train by offering a program that includes an AI PC and training.

The news has been taken by investors as a signal the chipmaking giant is falling behind in the emerging era of artificial intelligence and comes as tech stocks are generally under pressure.

But it is also facing new restrictions from Commerce that require Huawei’s chip manufacturers to seek U.S. licenses before producing chips for the telecoms giant, if they rely on U.S. chipmaking technology.