China’s top chip equipment maker sees two US executives step aside amid tech war tensions
Two executives with US citizenship at Chinese chip gear maker Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) have stepped down from their positions, as trade tensions between the US and China continue to escalate.
Ni Tuqiang and Yang Wei, both US citizens, are no longer “core technical personnel” at AMEC, which is widely seen as China’s best hope to produce advanced etching and deposition tools to cut reliance on foreign suppliers, for “personal reasons”, but the two remain employees of the company, Shanghai-listed AMEC said in a regulatory filing last week.
The number of AMEC’s “core technical personnel”, which also include chairman and CEO Gerald Yin Zhiyao, has decreased from nine to seven with the latest executive moves, the company said.
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The changes “will not have a significant adverse impact” on AMEC’s research and development progress, operational capabilities or its competitiveness, the company said.
AMEC did not specify what new positions the two executives would take on. Ni also stepped down as a vice-president of the company, AMEC said.
A view of the clean room at Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment. Photo: Handout alt=A view of the clean room at Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment. Photo: Handout>
In October 2022, the US Department of Commerce announced restrictions on “US persons” supporting the “development or production” of chips at “certain China-located semiconductor fabrication ‘facilities’ without a licence”.
The surprise move saw dozens of US executives at listed Chinese chip companies scrambling to determine if they were subject to the restrictions.
The latest personnel changes at AMEC come as the country’s semiconductor industry navigates through intensified geopolitical conflicts as Washington mulls further measures to curb China’s access to advanced chip technology over perceived national security risks.
In its 2023 annual report published in March, AMEC did not state the nationality of its American chairman and CEO Yin, as it had done in previous annual reports. Yin, 80, worked in the US for Intel, Lam Research and Applied Materials before establishing his own company in China in 2004.
While China remains years behind the US in terms of sophistication in chip-making tools, the country’s semiconductor supply chain could achieve a “basic level of self-sufficiency” this summer, despite gaps in quality and reliability, Yin said during an industry panel discussion in July.
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The chip veteran added that he was confident China could catch up with the leaders in the chip-making industry in another five to 10 years.
In January, the US Department of Defence (DOD) added a number of Chinese companies, including AMEC, to it “Chinese Military Company (CMC)” list, citing their threat to US national security and barring them from doing business with some American companies.
Gerald Yin Zhiyao, chairman and CEO of Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment. Photo: Baidu alt=Gerald Yin Zhiyao, chairman and CEO of Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment. Photo: Baidu>
In August, Shanghai-based AMEC said it had filed a lawsuit against the DOD, whose designation of the firm as a CMC was made without legal basis and had caused it “serious and irreparable” harm.
Still, AMEC’s business is expanding, which the company attributes to strong domestic demand for local chip-making tools.
Its 2023 full year revenue jumped 32.1 per cent year on year to 6.26 billion yuan (US$879 million), the company said in its latest annual report.
Revenue for the first six months of this year grew 36.4 per cent year on year to 3.4 billion yuan, AMEC said in August.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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