The U.S. Department of Commerce has imposed export restrictions on Samsung, which prohibits the company from supplying chips made with a 7-nanometer or lower process technology to Chinese customers. This is reported by Wccftech.

The day before, the same ban was imposed on the world’s largest chipmaker, TSMC. Samsung had been an alternative option for Chinese companies, but now this path has been completely restricted.

The ban hit Samsung as hard as it did Chinese companies. The Korean manufacturer has long had problems finding enough customers for its second-generation chips manufactured using the 3-nm GAA process. The exact losses for Samsung as a result of the new restriction are not yet known.

At the same time, for Chinese companies, the new restrictions mean that they will now need to order chips from a Chinese SMIC manufacturer. The disadvantage for China is that this production takes place on older DUV equipment instead of modern EUV machines.

Currently, SMIC can only provide companies with chips manufactured using the 7-nanometer process. Earlier, there were reports that SMIC and Huawei were able to successfully develop a 5-nanometer process, but there was no confirmation.