Will the United States ban the sale of DUV equipment to China?

According to Jiwei.com, the market has recently reported that in order to further restrict the development of China's semiconductor industry, the Biden administration is considering including immersion ArF deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines used for mature process chips in the list of products banned from sale to China. Regarding the question of whether DUV lithography machines will be controlled by the US government, Gartner analysts exclusively responded to Jiwei.com.

Gartner analysts mentioned that many reports and congressional letters in the United States mentioned the problem of DUV lithography machines, but the US government said they had not considered this, mainly because the control of DUV lithography machines would require a lot of coordination with Japan (because DUV is divided into dry and immersion types abroad).

That is, if some “very broad imagining” of the DUV rule came into effect, and assuming that the rule applied to all entities in China (not just military end users), it would hit all Chinese companies that use DUV.

This "blanket ban" for all Chinese entities, regardless of their country/region or headquarters (including the United States and South Korea, etc.), will be affected. However, Gartner analysts believe that this is unlikely. The United States is more likely to focus on banning Chinese entities at present.

"That is to say, it is unlikely that the United States will control DUV," Gartner analysts said.

However, Gartner analysts also believe that the US control of DUV may occur as a "licensing model". Samsung personnel told Gartner that the US warned Samsung that if Samsung wants to obtain key semiconductor equipment, it must set up a factory in the United States. Under the pressure of US export control, Samsung's management team is re-evaluating the plan to build a factory in Xi'an