Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
The US government has warned officials in the Netherlands and Japan that it may impose its Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR) on suppliers of chip-manufacturing equipment if they don’t further restrict their dealings with China.
FDPR allows the US to put restrictions on foreign-made products which contain any US-sourced technology however insignificant. The measures are seen as particularly affecting ASML and Tokyo
Electron.
One aim is stop non-US companies sending personnel to China to service and repair restricted equipment which is already in China. US companies are already barred from doing that.
Some US companies are alarmed at FDPR being introduced because it will encourage their customers to drop them.
Your argument assumes that China wants to kill us all! Just how can we view China with such cycnicism following a period in which huges numbers of people have been elevated from poverty while in neighbouring Russia, a meglomaniac is arguably a far greater threat to global stability. But you’re right in identifying that the root of my ire lies with the massive overhead that accompanies new product design in terms of attempting to secure reliable component supplies. In fact I’d say that 50% of the effort that went into my last major project went into procurement, which I concede has eased since Covid. Yet who knows what might follow Biden Trump et al if the US continues to pursue what is in effect a global trade war that some would argue is already lost?
So just how do ASML & Tokyo Electron qualify as US-based? Isn’t it past time that Trump et al abandoned their ill-fated campaigns & let the rest of us get on with freely sourcing components from whoever is best suited to our needs?
They don’t. But the US can prevent them using US-sourced technology. And Yes it would be nice if we all source components from wherever we want to but why would you supply potentially lethal technology to someone who wanted to kill you?