By Greg Gao

US chip titan Intel received a one-year authorization from the US Department of Commerce on October 11 to continue its current NAND memory chip production in northeast China’s Dalian, Intel News tweeted on October 13.

In October 2020, SK Hynix, the South Korean memory chip maker, announced the acquisition of Intel’s NAND flash memory and SSD business for $9 billion, including Intel’s NAND flash memory factory in Dalian. At the end of 2021, SK Hynix completed the first phase of the acquisition, taking over the SSD business and the assets of its NAND flash memory manufacturing plant in Dalian from Intel, though the operational transfer is continuing and is expected to be finished in 2025.

The US Department of Commerce announced on October 7 that it would restrict the export of manufacturing equipment used in China to produce DRAM chips at 18 nanometers or below, NAND flash memory above 128 layers, and logic chips below 14 nanometers. The new rules add new license requirements for advanced semiconductors and chip-making equipment destined for a facility in China.

SK Hynix said it received a letter from the US Commerce Department that ensures the company can supply its China-based facilities with the equipment and items needed for one year without meeting additional licensing requirements. That allows SK Hynix to continue its memory-chip production in China.

SK Hynix, the world’s second biggest memory chipmaker by revenue, has a production facility in east China’s Wuxi city that produces about 13% of the world’s production of DRAM, one of the major types of chips that go in computers, smartphones and other devices, according to market research firm TrendForce.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory-chip maker with facilities in the Chinese cities of Xi’an and Suzhou, also reportedly got a one-year reprieve from US chip restrictions on China, according to Reuters.