Chinese chip industry defiant as trade curbs bite

"Support Chinese chips, join the enterprise of the century" read an upbeat slogan at a recent semiconductor industry fair in Shanghai, where the mood was defiant despite the intense pressure placed on the sector by geopolitical tensions.

Stands at last week's Semicon were packed with visitors, who inspected the mostly domestic displays of glittering wafers, silicon ingots and circuit boards, while sales staff touted products and services running the gamut of the chip manufacturing process.

Semiconductors, which power everything from mobile phones to cars, have become a key battleground in recent years, with the United States and some European countries blocking exports of high-tech chip technology to China over fears of military use.

In response, Beijing has turbo-charged a drive for self-sufficiency - a prominent theme at the fair, with exhibitors plastering their stands with slogans like "Overcome 'bottleneck' technology, realise nationalisation of key 'Chinese chip' materials."

Vicky Zheng, a representative of a Qingdao-based chip assembly company, said she believed restrictions would force China to "have more updated development to catch up or even replace things, so we will have more and better solutions."

Huang, an exhibitor representing the Suzhou-based semiconductor testing company King Long Technology, agreed.

"Under an environment with such pressure, China's internal expansion of some technology and production capacity and the training of technical personnel are making very rapid progress," he told AFP.

In September, the United States and its allies got a nasty shock when it appeared that rapid progress was indeed underway.

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