The federal government is making the process of building semiconductors in China for chipmakers such as Samsung and SK Hynix more difficult by rescinding authorizations that allowed the companies to receive U.S. semiconductor manufacturing equipment there, according to a recent filing by the Federal Register.
Previously, the Department of Commerce had offered the companies exemptions to a series of restrictions established in 2022 on selling American semiconductor equipment to Beijing.
The filing, created by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security on Aug. 29 and set to be published in the Federal Register on Sept. 2, says the agency had terminated the companies’ verified end-user (VEU) status. That program allowed companies approved by the U.S. government to bypass licensing rules and import, transfer, and export certain goods that usually required licensing….