While US export controls have effectively blacklisted many Chinese chip designers and fabs from doing business with the likes of TSMC or lithography linchpin ASML, exemptions have been granted for many legacy nodes and memory technologies.

These exemptions have enabled TSMC as well as South Korean memory vendors Samsung and SK Hynix to continue operating facilities in China.

I hope the US administration will not go through with targeting “legacy” foreign semiconductor production facilities in China. I am going to speculate that this will have an impact beyond local Asia-Pacific markets.