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December 2022
TAP TIMES TM Volume 13, Number 11

The new China Syndrome: a tale of two countries

s we noted in our Novem-
ber issue, the Friday, Oc-
tober 7 sanctions against
China are a day that — to
borrow President Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt’s famous
Awords — will live in in-
famy — at least for the
semiconductor industry.

Ron Iscoff, Editor
roniscoff@gmail.com

Let’s recap: On October 7, the U.S. gov- This is the Applied Materials EPI-200 epitaxial chamber. The Oc-
ernment through the Commerce Dept. tober 7 sanctions controlling exports to China, will result in a loss
of billlions of dollars in sales, Applied says. (Applied Materils)
issued several very stern sanctions against ASML is actively assessing which particular
China that will change the way that the fabs are affected by this regulation.”
U.S. and other U.S. allies do business with
that massive country. Fab work prohibited
The sanctions, meant to stem China’s
Tightened controls advance in semiconductor technology, are
Under the tough new sanctions, suppliers particularly harsh on semiconductor fab
of front-end equipment are likely to be af- employees who are either U.S. citizens
fected most. These will include equipment or permanent U.S. residents (green card
makers such as Applied Materials, and holders). next page
Lam Research, who are among the largest.

The controls will also affect foreign tool
makers such as ASML, the large Dutch
maker of exposure equipment. To com-
ply with the U.S. sanctions, they are for-
bidden to supply Chinese end-users with
advanced deep EUV equipment.

ASML’s internal memo
Shortly after the White House announce-
ment, ASML issued an internal memo that
read, “ASML U.S. employees must refrain
— either directly or indirectly — from ship-
ping or providing support to any custom- Tokyo Electron, a Japanese manufacturer of front-end equip-
ers in China until further notice, while ment, says “It will not take advantage” of the opportunities cre-
ated by the new sanctions against China. (TEL)