SOUTH KOREAN chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will be allowed to ship U.S. semiconductor manufacturing equipment to their China factories indefinitely without separate U.S. approvals, South Korea’s presidential office and the companies said. The Biden administration has already notified the two companies of its decision which takes effect immediately, Choi Sang-mok, South Korea’s senior presidential secretary for economic affairs, told reporters Monday. Previously, Samsung and SK Hynix obtained one-year waivers from the U.S. government to continue importing advanced tools for their China plants. The waivers would have expired this month. “The U.S. government’s decision means that the most significant trade issue of our semiconductor companies has been resolved,” said Choi. Samsung and SK Hynix, the world’s largest and second-largest memory chipmakers, had invested billions of dollars in their chip production facilities in China and welcomed the move. “Through close coordination with relevant governments, uncertainties related to the operation of our semiconductor manufacturing lines in China have been significantly removed,” Samsung said in a statement. “We believe the [U.S.] decision will contribute to the stabilization of the global semiconductor supply chain,” said SK Hynix. The two companies together controlled nearly 70% of the global DRAM market and 50% of the NAND flash market as of end-June, data from TrendForce showed. Hynix warned in 2022, when Washington unveiled its broadest series of chip export restrictions, that escalating curbs could force the closure or sale of a major plant in China in a worst-case scenario. It operates a DRAM factory in Wuxi in eastern China, which produces a major proportion of its global memory chips, and also runs NAND facilities in the northern city of Dalian. (SD-Agencies) | 