Chip business teams slam anticipated guidelines in non-public letter to Biden

By Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) – A half-dozen commerce teams from the semiconductor and manufacturing industries despatched a personal letter to U.S. President Joe Biden complaining that new export controls anticipated this week had been rushed by means of with out consulting them.

The Biden administration on Monday launched rules on the place computing chips from Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) will be positioned around the globe, establishing a three-tier system wherein most nations might want to receive licenses to construct AI information facilities with U.S. chips.

In a letter to Biden dated January 13 that was not launched publicly, commerce teams together with the Semiconductor Trade Affiliation, which represents chip corporations, and SEMI, which represents corporations that make instruments to fabricate chips, complained about that rule in addition to one other rule that might come as early as this week.

“We perceive that this extra rule will much more strictly management excessive bandwidth reminiscence, with out consideration of how such adjustments might affect U.S. corporations or cede market share to world opponents,” the letter mentioned.

“Once more, these pending rules have been developed with out acceptable business session or the chance for public remark, regardless of their long-term impacts and financial and worldwide significance.”

The SIA and SEMI didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Excessive-bandwidth reminiscence, at the moment manufactured by U.S. and Korean corporations, is a crucial ingredient to constructing superior AI chips, and the rule would prohibit its sale to China.

A supply acquainted with the anticipated guidelines mentioned they might additionally reverse an earlier interpretation of the principles that allowed corporations equivalent to Lam Analysis (NASDAQ:LRCX), which provides tools to reminiscence chip makers in China, to herald a whole bunch of tens of millions extra {dollars} in income than it had beforehand anticipated.

Lam didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.