As Washington and Beijing implemented a trade deal to ease recent restrictions on key technologies, the Trump administration lifted the export license requirement for the sale of chip design software to China.
According to a company statement, the US Department of Commerce has informed the world’s three major chip design software suppliers – Synopsys Inc., Cadence Design Systems Inc. and Siemens AG of Germany – that the requirement for them to apply for government permission when conducting business in China in the near future is no longer valid.
Siemens said it has restored full access to its software and technology for its Chinese customers. Synopsys and Cadence said they are restoring such services. The US Department of Commerce has not responded to a request for comment on the letter to lift the restrictions. These restrictions also apply to smaller electronic design automation (EDA) tool manufacturers.
In May this year, the Trump administration restricted the sale of EDA tools to China. This was one of a series of measures taken in response to Beijing’s restrictions on the export of important rare earth minerals. According to a trade agreement finally reached last week, Washington has promised to allow the export of chip design software, ethylene and jet engines to China – provided that Beijing fulfills its commitment to speed up the approval process for the export of key minerals.
This brief blow to EDA sales in China marks an escalation of Washington’s years-long campaign to curb Beijing’s ambitions in semiconductors and artificial intelligence. Previously, Washington has imposed restrictions on advanced chips and their manufacturing equipment. Cadence and Synopsys’ software is used to design a wide range of products, from the most sophisticated processors of companies like Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc. to simple components such as power regulation elements.
It has been nearly 10 days since President Donald Trump announced that a “complete” trade deal had been reached with Beijing, but US companies still have little idea when they will receive key rare earths from China or whether Washington will allow the resumption of other exports.
According to informed sources, although the number of required licenses has decreased, many US companies that need Chinese minerals are still waiting for Beijing to approve their shipments. They said that China’s approval system is being improved but remains cumbersome, which runs counter to Trump’s promise on June 11 in London that rare earths would “flow in advance”.
These delays have left a series of US industries at the mercy of the unstable Sino-US relations. Some companies are still waiting for magnets, while others are facing restrictions on exports to China. Such frictions could undermine the fragile tariff truce agreement reached by Washington and Beijing in Geneva last month and trigger a new round of retaliation.
Interviews with several Western buyers, industry insiders and officials familiar with the discussions show that they are frustrated by the ambiguity of the policies of the two countries and remain confused about how far China’s approval of magnets would go before Trump would abandon the tit-for-tat export restrictions.
