According to foreign media reports, in order to comply with the new US government chip control regulations, China’s Yangtze Memory factory has called for the resignation of American employees holding key technical positions in the company.
It is unclear how many US citizens and green card holders will be forced to leave the YMTC, but many have already left, according to the Financial Times, four people familiar with the matter said.
A senior engineer from YMTC said some Americans were key to helping make progress in manufacturing NAND Flash, but they had to let them go.
Yang Shining, a longtime American CEO of YMTC, stepped down before the United States announced the new regulations. It is reported that with the support of government funds, Yang Shining led YMTC to become the leading memory chip maker in China, and Apple originally planned to launch the iPhone this year. The new machine uses the Yangtze River memory chip, but due to political pressure and the impact of new US sanctions, the related plan is said to be dead.
Recently, US semiconductor equipment manufacturers Lam Research, Applied Materials, and KLA Corporation suspended sales and services to Chinese semiconductor manufacturers. Dutch trader ASML also told US employees to stop serving Chinese customers while sanctions are being assessed.
