REUTERS, Washington

The United States is considering limiting shipments of American chipmaking equipment to memory chip makers in China including Yangtze Memory Technologies Co Ltd (YMTC), according to four people familiar with the matter, part of a bid to halt China’s semiconductor sector advances and protect US companies.

If President Joe Biden’s administration proceeds with the move, it could also hurt South Korean memory chip juggernauts Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and SK Hynix Inc, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Samsung has two big factories in China while SK Hynix Inc is buying Intel Corp’s NAND flash memory chips manufacturing business in China.

The crackdown, if approved, would involve barring the shipment of US chipmaking equipment to factories in China that manufacture advanced NAND chips.

It would mark the first US bid through export controls to target Chinese production of memory chips without specialised military applications, representing a more expansive view of American national security, according to export control experts.