The United States upgrades export restrictions on high-performance chips and semiconductor equipment! Gaming chips also affected?
Beijing time, October 17, 2023 news, the Biden administration of the United States said on Tuesday local time that it plans to formally introduce a series of new restrictive measures, including restrictions on the export of more advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips and semiconductor equipment to China, which will take effect on November 16, 2023, aiming to prevent China from obtaining cutting-edge technology from the United States to strengthen its strength.
At the same time, on the evening of the 17th, the United States also included 13 Chinese technology companies such as Bicheng Technology and Moore Thread in the "entity list" to weaken China's strength in the field of artificial intelligence.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the new measures are aimed at blocking China's technology development from being released on October 7 last year to restrict semiconductor restrictions on China, and may be updated "at least annually" in the future.
Raimondo said the goal is to limit China's access to "advanced semiconductors that could drive breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and complex computers that are critical to [Chinese] defense applications." At the same time, she stressed that the US government has no intention of harming China economically.
First, the export of high-performance computing chips has been further tightened
On October 7 last year, the United States officially introduced new export control regulations for Chinese mainland, including export restrictions on high-performance computing chips to Chinese mainland. And the performance indicators of NVIDIA's A100 chip are used as the limiting standard. That is, a regulated high-performance computing chip that meets the following two conditions at the same time: (1) the I/O bandwidth transmission rate of the chip is greater than or equal to 600 Gbyte/s; (2) The sum of the computing power calculated by multiplying the bit length of each operation of the "Digital Processing Unit Original Computing Unit" by TOPS is greater than or equal to 4800TOPS.
Affected by this restriction policy, NVIDIA A100 and H100 GPU-accelerated chips cannot continue to be exported to China. Subsequently, NVIDIA launched a special version of the A800 and H800 chips for the Chinese mainland market, mainly to limit the transmission rate of NVLink to meet the requirements of the new US export control regulations. This also allows Chinese AI manufacturers to continue to import NVIDIA's A100 and H800 to improve their AI computing power.
The move could have sparked discontent from the U.S. government and eventually led to an escalation of restrictive rules.
The latest restriction rules for high-performance computing chips remove "interconnect bandwidth" as a parameter to identify restricted chips, i.e. if any of the following parameters are exceeded: (1) the original threshold set out in the October 7, 2022 rule; (2) Add a "Performance Density Threshold".
At the same time, the new rules also require notification of the exit of certain additional chips with performance slightly below the limit threshold. Under the new Advanced Computing for License Exception Notification (NAC), after receiving notification of export and re-export to Macao, China, and identified as a U.S. arms embargoed area, the U.S. government will review within 25 days to determine whether a transaction can be conducted under a license exception or whether a license is still required.
BIS has also introduced an exemption that allows the export of chips for consumer applications. However, notification requirements are still in place for a small number of high-end gaming chips, with the aim of improving shipment visibility and preventing the misuse of these chips to undermine U.S. national security.
In addition, in order to prevent circumvention of export restrictions in specific countries and regions, such as the use of third countries to transfer or obtain restricted items, the new rules extend the export licensing requirements for high-performance computing chips to all 22 countries where the United States maintains an arms embargo, as well as Macao, China.
It should be pointed out that as early as January 17 this year, the Biden administration of the United States announced the implementation of comprehensive new export controls on China's Macao Special Administrative Region.
For the updated high-performance computing chip restriction rules, it is expected that NVIDIA's A800 and H800 GPU chips previously launched specifically in response to U.S. export restrictions, Intel's AI chip Gaudi 2 for the Chinese market, and AMD's related AI chips, as well as their high-end gaming GPUs, may all be affected.
NVIDIA appears to have anticipated these limitations, and at its second-quarter earnings conference in August, NVIDIA CFO Curris said that in response to the impact of the U.S. escalating Chinese intelligence regulatory measures, the company does not expect the additional export restrictions to have an immediate and material impact on data center GPU financial results given the strong global demand for NVIDIA products.
However, NVIDIA also stressed at the time that the long-term ban on selling data center GPUs to China, if implemented, would cause Nvidia to lose the opportunity to compete and lead in one of the world's largest markets. At present, NVIDIA's data center demand from China accounts for 20%-25% of the business's revenue, a record high.
As of press time, NVIDIA, AMD and Intel have not responded publicly.
Second, the upgrade of semiconductor equipment restrictions
Update restrictions for semiconductor devices include:
(1) include additional types of SMEs previously described under ECCNs 3B090 and control all such items under ECCNs 3B001 and 3B002;
(2) revise ECCNs 3D001, 3D002, 3D003 and 3EO01 to make consistent changes to the license requirements for projects moving from ECCNs 3BO90 to ECCNs 3B001 and 3BO02;
(3) modify the license exception limitations to reflect the deletion of 3B090 and make other changes related to the availability of license exceptions for these SMEs;
(4) revise national security licensing requirements and review policies to implement national security controls for new SMEs and projects moved from ECCNs 3B090 to ECCNs 3B001 and 3B002 and destinations specified in Country Group D:5;
(5) revised the Regional Stability License Requirements and License Review Policy, which removed the reference to ECCN 3B090 and extended the license requirements to Macau and designated destinations in the D:5 country group;
(6) amend the minimum clause to add a 0% minimum rule to the items described in the new 3B001.f.1.b.2.b;
(7) revise and reformat the "American" activity control and "supercomputer" manufacturing end-use control to better achieve the October 7, 2022 IFR objectives and improve clarity;
(8) two new defining terms have been added to the EAR, namely "extreme ultraviolet" ("EUV") and "advanced node integrated circuits";
(9) the addition of a new Temporary General Licence (TGL) to provide additional time for small and medium-sized enterprise producers in U.S. and country groups a:5 and a:6 to identify alternative sources of supply outside of arms embargoed countries, or to obtain separately validated licenses;
(10) Modify the permit requirements according to the destination.
The latest reports also show that a senior U.S. administration official said at a press conference on Monday night local time that the new restrictions introduced by the U.S. government will restrict a wider range of advanced chips and chip-making tools. These restrictions will affect chip designers such as NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD, as well as semiconductor equipment manufacturers such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, and Kleel.
It is worth noting that on the evening of October 17, the Dutch ASML, a major lithography machine manufacturer, also issued a statement in response to the new semiconductor export restrictions that the US government is about to promulgate.
"Today, the U.S. government announced an updated version of the Advanced Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Rule, imposing additional restrictions on the export of advanced chip manufacturing technology," AMSL said. These rules will take effect after 30 days. Given the length and complexity of these regulations, ASML will need to carefully assess any potential impact. However, as far as our business is concerned, from the information we have received, it is our understanding that the new regulations will apply to a limited number of fabs in China related to advanced semiconductor manufacturing. In the medium to long term, these export control measures may have an impact on the regional segmentation of our system sales. However, we do not expect these measures to have a significant impact on our financial outlook for 2023 and our long-term scenario for 2025 and 2030, as we communicated during our investor day in November 2022. ”
ASML said it "will seek further clarification from U.S. authorities on the scope of these new rules." ASML is committed to full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, including the export control regulations of the countries in which we do business. ”
Third, the export of "computational lithography" software will also be restricted?
In addition, according to Reuters, the new export controls of the United States to China will also restrict the export of "computational lithography" software used in advanced chip manufacturing.
As we all know, lithography is the most complex, expensive, and critical link in the chip manufacturing process. The data shows that the cost of lithography accounts for about 1/3 or more of the entire silicon wafer processing cost. Computational lithography, on the other hand, simulates the behavior of light as it passes through optics and interacts with photoresist, applying inverse physics algorithms to predict patterns on the mask plate in order to generate the final pattern on the wafer.
△Calculate the lithographic OPC schematic
At the NVIDIA GTC conference in March this year, NVIDIA also released a breakthrough technology for the chip manufacturing industry, the NVIDIA cuLitho computational lithography library, which can accelerate computing lithography by more than 40 times, making the manufacture of 2nm and more advanced chips possible. At that time, TSMC, a leading wafer foundry manufacturer, ASML, a lithography machine giant, and Synoposys, an EDA giant, all participated in the cooperation and introduced this technology.
Fourth, 13 Chinese enterprises, such as Bicheng and Moore threads, were included in the entity list
According to documents published on the Federal Register website, the U.S. Department of Commerce has included 13 Chinese companies on the "Entity List", including well-known domestic GPU manufacturers Wallwood Technology and Moore Thread.
The list of the 13 Chinese companies is as follows:
• Beijing Biren Technology Development Co., Ltd.;
Beijing Bicheng Technology Development Co., Ltd
• Guangzhou Biren Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd.;
Guangzhou Bicheng Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd
• Hangzhou Biren Technology Development Co., Ltd.;
Hangzhou Bicheng Technology Development Co., Ltd
• Light Cloud (Hangzhou) Technology Co., Ltd.;
Guangguangyun (Hangzhou) Technology Co., Ltd., founded in April 2021, is a cloud rendering system developer, committed to building a real-time cloud rendering engine, building a future full-real virtual world, relying on CAD laboratories, independent research and development of low-latency high-fidelity cloud rendering systems, widely used in cloud gaming, AR/VR, industrial digital twins and other fields. Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. invested in it in 2021, and its shareholding ratio is unknown.
• Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd.;
Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd
• Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Chengdu) Co., Ltd.;
Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Chengdu) Co., Ltd
• Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.;
Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd
• Shanghai Biren Information Technology Co., Ltd.;
Shanghai Bicheng Information Technology Co., Ltd
• Shanghai Biren Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd.;
Shanghai Bicheng Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd
• Shanghai Biren Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.;
Shanghai Bicheng Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd
• Superburning Semiconductor (Nanjing) Co., Ltd.;
Founded in January 2022, by several returned technical experts from Silicon Valley and veterans familiar with the domestic market and capital, the company is a scarce high-speed DSP chip and SerDesIP provider in China, the company is positioned to provide high-speed digital connection processor products and IP services to customers around the world, with a very high level of product performance and filling the domestic gap. Moore Thread Intelligent Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. is its fifth largest shareholder, holding 3.7929%.
• Suzhou Xinyan Holdings Co., Ltd.;
Shanghai Xinzhili Enterprise Development Co., Ltd. (formerly known as Suzhou Xinyan Holdings Co., Ltd.) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shanghai Bicheng Technology Co., Ltd.
• Zhuhai Biren Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd.
Zhuhai Bicheng Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd
Suppress the Chinese industry of industrial intelligence
Judging from the above list, the Chinese companies included in the entity list by the US Department of Commerce are mainly Bicheng Technology and its subsidiaries and investment companies, and Moore Thread and its subsidiaries and investment companies. Bibicheng Technology and Moore Thread are well-known GPU manufacturers in China, and they both have high-performance GPU products for server AI acceleration.
In the context of many Chinese AI algorithm manufacturers such as SenseTime and many Chinese AI chip manufacturers such as Cambrian have previously been included in the entity list by the US Department of Commerce, now the new news shows that the US Department of Commerce will further tighten the export restrictions of high-performance AI chips of NVIDIA and AMD and other head AI chip manufacturers to China (NVIDIA H800 will also be restricted), obviously, the United States has included Wall Technology and Moore Thread in the entity list in order to further curb the development of China's artificial intelligence industry.
About Walltech Technology: Founded in 2019, it is committed to the research and development of original general computing system, and its development path is to first focus on cloud general intelligent computing, and gradually catch up with existing solutions in artificial intelligence training and reasoning, graphics rendering, high-performance general computing and other fields, and achieve breakthroughs in domestic high-end general intelligent computing chips.
On August 9, 2022, Bicheng Technology released the first general-purpose GPU chip BR100, independent original architecture Bi Li Cheng, OAM server Haixuan, as well as OAM module Wall 100, PCIe board product Wall 104, and self-developed BIRENSUPA software platform. According to reports, the BR100 chip has set a global computing power record (its INT8 computing power reaches 2048 TOPS, BF16 computing power reaches 1024 TFLOPS, TF32+ computing power reaches 512 TFLOPS, FP32 computing power reaches 256 TFLOPS), the peak computing power reaches more than 3 times that of flagship products sold by international manufacturers, setting a domestic interconnection bandwidth record, or the first in China to adopt Chiplet technology, the first to adopt a new generation of host interface PCIe 5.0, First general-purpose GPU chip to support CXL interconnect protocol.
About Moore Thread: Founded in October 2020, it is an integrated circuit high-tech company focusing on GPU chip design, focusing on the development and design of full-featured GPU chips and related products, which can provide powerful computing acceleration capabilities for Chinese technology ecosystem partners. It is committed to innovating a new generation of GPUs for meta-computing applications, building a comprehensive computing platform that integrates visual computing, 3D graphics computing, scientific computing and artificial intelligence computing, and establishing an ecosystem based on cloud-native GPU computing to help drive the development of the digital economy.
On March 30, 2022, Moore Threads released a new architecture and a series of blockbuster new products, including: MUSA (Moore Threads Unified System Architecture); The first generation of multi-function GPU chip based on the MUSA architecture, Sudi; MTT S60 desktop graphics for PCs and workstations and MTT S2000 graphics rendering and compute card for data centers; GPU physics engine AlphaCore; DIGITALME DIGITAL HUMAN SOLUTIONS; and multiple meta-computing application solutions to help the development of the digital economy. Among them, the GPU chip Sudi adopts a 12nm process, contains 2048 MUSA cores, single-precision floating-point operations up to 6TFLOPS, a pixel fill rate of 192G Pixel/s, equipped with 8GB of video memory, and supports 4K/8K high-definition display.
At the same time, Moore Thread also brought three desktop graphics cards, MTT S60, MTT S70 and MTT S80. On May 31 this year, the Moore thread MTT S70 domestic game graphics card was officially put on sale, priced at 2499 yuan.
effect
The Commerce Department alleges that these entities were involved in the development of advanced computing integrated circuits (ICs) that could be used to provide artificial intelligence capabilities, in violation of U.S. national security and foreign policy interests under EAR Section 744.11.
For all of these entities, the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industrial Security (BIS) has licensing requirements for all projects subject to the EAR and will be reviewed under the assumption of rejection. They were also included in footnote 4.
Footnote 4 to the Entity List is a rule used to determine whether foreign products supplied to such entities are subject to the EAR (not limited to U.S. origin). The particularity of this rule is that it expands the scope of products supplied to entities in footnote 4 of the Entity List to be subject to EAR, which means that products, software, machinery or components manufactured outside the United States that are a direct product of such U.S.-origin technology or software will also be subject to export controls, restricting exports to such entities, in addition to U.S.-origin technology or products that would restrict exports to such entities. No one may provide the relevant products to an entity in footnote 4 of the Entity List without a licence.
For Walltech and Moore Thread, the rule would mean that their Entity List entities would not only be unable to import U.S. technology or products, but would also not be able to use fabs based on U.S. technology or equipment to manufacture chips for them. This will be a serious blow to these two domestic GPU manufacturers.
The document also shows that the U.S. Department of Commerce for changes in this Final Rule is disqualified as a result of this regulatory action for shipments of items that were disqualified from a license exception or are not eligible to export, re-export, or transfer (domestically) as a result of this regulatory action that were physically exported, re-exported, or transferred (domestic) to or within a foreign destination on October 17, 2023, or exported without a license (NLR) prior to November 16, 2023, Re-export or diversion (within the country). Any such item that has not actually been exported, re-exported, or transferred (domestic) before midnight on October 17, 2023 will require a license under this Final Rule.
Bicheng Technology responded
In response to the move of the US Department of Commerce, WallChat Technology issued a statement this evening in response: "The company strongly opposes this move by the US Department of Commerce, will actively complain to the relevant US government departments, and call on the US government to re-examine." ”
Moore thread responds
In response to the move of the US Department of Commerce, Moore Thread also issued a statement this evening in response: "We express our strong protest. "Moore thread emphasized that since its establishment, it has strictly abided by the laws and regulations of relevant countries and regions, always adhered to the legal and compliant corporate culture and management philosophy, and established a sound export control compliance management system and workflow guidelines." The Company is currently actively communicating with all parties and we are evaluating the impact of this matter. ”
Fifth, it may disrupt the stability of the global production and supply chain
The Commerce Department's new restrictions and measures have also drawn criticism from the U.S. semiconductor industry (SIA), and executives have warned that tighter regulations could strengthen China's resolve to build alternatives to U.S. technology.
SIA said in a statement: "We are evaluating the impact of the updated export control policy on the U.S. semiconductor industry. We recognize the need to protect national security and believe that maintaining a healthy U.S. semiconductor industry is an important part of achieving this goal. But too broad unilateral controls could hurt the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem without promoting national security because they encourage overseas customers to look elsewhere. Therefore, we urge the government to strengthen coordination with allies to ensure a level playing field for all companies. ”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning, who presided over a regular press conference on October 16, also responded to the question that the Biden administration of the United States will introduce new restrictive measures, saying, "China has repeatedly stated its position on US chip export controls to China, and we believe that the United States should stop politicizing, instrumentalizing and weaponizing economic and trade science and technology issues, and stop disrupting the stability of the global production and supply chain." China will pay close attention to relevant developments and resolutely safeguard its own rights and interests. ”
Editor: Xinzhixun - Ronin Sword