US mulls blacklisting CXMT to curb China’s chip advance

The Biden administration is weighing sanctions on several Chinese tech companies, including memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, in a fresh bid to restrain the Asian country’s development of advanced semiconductors.

The US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is considering adding ChangXin to its so-called Entity List, which restricts companies’ access to US technology, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the conversations are private. BIS is also considering restricting five other Chinese firms, the people said, while emphasizing that the list isn’t final.

ChangXin, or CXMT, makes chips used in a wide range of products, including computer servers and smart vehicles. It competes with US-based Micron Technology Inc. and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. Micron funded an advocacy group that has long pushed for CXMT to be restricted.

‘We actively endorse and promote free and fair competition,’ CXMT said in a statement. ‘Our commitment to this principle is demonstrated by our strict compliance with all relevant laws and regulations, including US export regulations.’ The company emphasized that its chips were used in ‘everyday consumer products, with a specific focus on civilian and commercial applications.’

The potential sanctions are a response by President Joe Biden’s administration to a chip breakthrough that Huawei Technologies Co. made last year, US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul of Texas said in an interview this week.