Chips seem to have become the front line troops of the US-China trade war.
When the US denied chips to ZTE, it almost collapsed. When it denied infrastructure equipment to China’s Fujian Jin Hua DRAM fab site, construction ended.
Now Japan has put out a statement instancing ICs as one of the areas where, from August 1st, it will restrict foreign ownership of its companies
“Based on increasing importance of ensuring cyber security in recent years, we decided to take necessary steps, including addition of integrated circuit manufacturing, from the standpoint of preventing as appropriate a situation that will severely affect Japan’s national security,” says a statement from the Japanese ministries for finance, trade and communications.
Toshiba is a company which springs to mind as one Japanese company which, since it’s weird and long drawn-out ‘auction’ process, has a raft of foreign investors – particularly Hynix.
Japan’s move followed President Trump’s visit to Tokyo. The motivation for the new rule is stated as ‘cyber-security risks’ aka China-phobia.
Japan says it wants to prevent a leakage of technology deemed important for national security or damaging to it’s defense output and technological capability.
Under the new rule, foreign investors have to report a purchase of more than 10% of a tech stock and then be required to undergo inspection.
Source: electronicsweekly
