China court bans sales of 26 products of US firm Micron

AChinese technology firm embroiled in a patent dispute with US chip giant Micron said yesterday that a court had ruled in its favour and ordered an immediate halt of several Micron products in China.

According to the state-owned Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co, a court in the southeastern city of Fuzhou has ruled that Micron must stop sales of more than a dozen solid-state drives, memory sticks and chips. The court ruling was not immediately available.

A Taiwanese partner of Jinhua, United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), issued a similar statement, saying the court had issued a preliminary injunction against 26 Micron products.

The case comes amid increasing trade friction between the world’s top two economies, with billions of dollars in fresh trade tariffs due to come into force tomorrow. Earlier this week, US authorities blocked a seven-year application from China Mobile to enter the domestic market, citing national security concerns.

Micron is the world’s fourth-biggest semiconductor supplier by sales revenue following South Korean firms Samsung and SK Hynix and US chip giant Intel.

More than half of its net sales come from China, the Idaho-based firm said in its 2017 earnings report.

It said in June the case could “have a material adverse effect” on its business, requiring changes to its China operation.

China established Jinhua in February 2016 in a bid to make its own home-produced chips, with the firm investing 37 billion yuan that year to build a production line with technology support from UMC.