Business | Muscle and memory

Asian businesses are being dragged into the chip war

Now South Korean manufacturers find themselves in a tricky spot

A Samsung Electronics Co. 16GB Double-Data-Rate (DDR) 4 memory module, top, and other DDR modules arranged for a photograph in Seoul, South Korea, on Wednesday, April 5, 2023. The South Korean chipmaker will report preliminary results for the March quarter on Friday. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images — Silicon materielImage: Getty Images

May 25th 2023|Singapore

UNLIKE LOGIC chips, which process information, memory chips, which store it, looked less vulnerable to the Sino-American techno-tussle. Such semiconductors are commodities, less high-tech than microprocessors and so less central to the great-power struggle for technological supremacy. That changed on May 21st, when the Chinese government banned memory chips made by Micron from critical-infrastructure projects. The restriction hurts the American chipmaker, which last year derived 11% of its revenue from mainland China. It also opens up a new front in the transpacific chip war—one which the countries that are near China but allies of America are being roped into.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Muscle and memory”