Tuesday, July 3rd 2018
Micron Technology Faces Ban in China After Losing IP Spat to UMC
Stocks of Micron Technology tanked on Tuesday as reports emerged of the company being banned in China, the world's largest semiconductor market. A Chinese court ruled in favor of Taiwanese semiconductor foundry UMC in its patent infringement lawsuit against Micron. The Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court issued a preliminary injunction stopping the sale of 26 Micron products, spanning across both its DRAM and NAND flash product lines, UMC said in a statement.
Micron, meanwhile, maintains that it hasn't read the injunction order yet, and that it won't comment until it does. Micron's position is doing precious little in stopping its hemorrhage at the markets, as its stock prices fell 8 percent at the time of this writing. The Micron-UMC spat is fascinating in a broader geopolitical context. Micron accuses UMC of serving as a conduit for funneling away its IP to midwife Chinese DRAM companies such as Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. It is the counter-suit to this by UMC, which was won today. China accounted to more than 50 percent of Micron's revenues in FY 2017, with most of the chips being mopped up by the consumer electronics and PC manufacturing industries.
Source:
Bloomberg
Micron, meanwhile, maintains that it hasn't read the injunction order yet, and that it won't comment until it does. Micron's position is doing precious little in stopping its hemorrhage at the markets, as its stock prices fell 8 percent at the time of this writing. The Micron-UMC spat is fascinating in a broader geopolitical context. Micron accuses UMC of serving as a conduit for funneling away its IP to midwife Chinese DRAM companies such as Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. It is the counter-suit to this by UMC, which was won today. China accounted to more than 50 percent of Micron's revenues in FY 2017, with most of the chips being mopped up by the consumer electronics and PC manufacturing industries.
7 Comments on Micron Technology Faces Ban in China After Losing IP Spat to UMC
When you manufacture in china, china owns that factory and IP.
This is why we NEVER looked at China as a favorable location to do business and I hope all the other chip makers start realizing this and make the changes ASAP.
Unless, of course, there is a rare-earth elements issue too.
It's why I don't mind paying more for certain products I know are made in the UK, or at least somewhere a decent wage was paid to a worker.
Unfortunately, tech is expensive anyway because the private companies, Apple, Intel, Nvidia, Micron, Hynix etc, all pretty much reap the profits for the shareholders.
EDIT: In really B&W terms, if I know a guy is shady but I can get a good deal from him, I enter that deal knowing I'm taking a risk. That's what any business did when it entered China.