Micron chip sales banned in China on patent case, rival UMC says
The case is part of a broader dispute between the two companies around accusations that UMC acted as a conduit for the theft of Micron’s designs
A Chinese court temporarily banned Micron Technology Inc. chip sales, cutting the US company off from the world’s largest semiconductor market, Taiwanese rival United Microelectronics Corp. said.
In a patent ruling in favour of UMC, the Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China issued a preliminary injunction stopping Micron from selling 26 products, including dynamic random access memory and NAND flash memory-related products, UMC said in a statement Tuesday. Micron said it hasn’t been served with the injunction and won’t comment until it does. Shares in the Boise, Idaho-based company dropped as much as 8 per cent.
The case is part of a broader dispute between the two companies around accusations that UMC acted as a conduit for the theft of Micron’s designs in an attempt to help China grow its domestic chip industry and replace imports that rival oil in total value. A Chinese antitrust regulator is already investigating Micron and its Korean rivals, the companies have said. Local media has reported that authorities are looking into increases in chip prices.
Last year, Micron sued UMC and its partner Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co., claiming they stole memory chip trade secrets. China accounted for more than 50 per cent of Micron’s revenue in fiscal 2017, according company data.
China is the largest market for semiconductors, yet isn’t home to even one of the top 10 producers of the crucial electronic components. The memory chip market has been increasingly concentrated in the hands of Micron and its two Korean rivals, Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. They have generated record profits recently from the components that are essential to everything from supercomputers to smartphones.