SEOUL (Reuters) -Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will be allowed to supply U.S. chip equipment to their China factories indefinitely, without separate U.S. approvals, Yonhap news agency quoted South Korea’s presidential office as saying on Monday.
The U.S. had been expected to extend a waiver granted to the South Korean chipmakers on a requirement for licences to bring U.S. chip equipment into China.
The U.S. Department of Commerce is updating its “validated end user” list, denoting which entities can receive exports of which technology, to allow Samsung and SK Hynix to keep supplying certain U.S. chipmaking tools to their China factories, Yonhap said.
Once included in the list, there is no need to obtain permission for separate export cases.
“We welcome the U.S. government’s decision to extend a waiver with regard to the export control regulations. We believe the decision will contribute to the stabilisation of the global semiconductor supply chain,” SK Hynix said in a statement.
No comment was immediately available from Samsung.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
