U.S. Entity List: SMIC (Dec 2020)

The U.S. Department of Commerce added SMIC — China's largest foundry — to the Entity List on December 18, 2020, citing the risk that equipment and materials supplied to SMIC could be diverted to military end uses. The listing subjects exports of advanced semiconductor manufacturing tools destined for SMIC to a presumption-of-denial license review for items that could enable production at 10nm or below. Existing licenses for mature-node tooling were largely allowed to continue, keeping SMIC operational at 14nm/28nm nodes while freezing its path to sub-10nm leading-edge production.