Three directors at Chinese semiconductor equipment supplier Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC), including two US passport holders, have resigned from the company's board, months after Washington barred "US persons" from supporting China's chip industry.
Du Zhiyou, director of AMEC, and Huang Qing, a board member, are naturalised US citizens who were born in China and moved to the US decades ago to study. Fan Xiaoning, a Chinese citizen, also resigned as director.
Both Du and Huang said they were stepping down "for personal reasons". Du will continue to serve as deputy general manager and a core technical employee, according to a statement released by AMEC, but Huang will no longer hold any positions at the company.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
Shanghai-based AMEC, which is listed on the city's STAR Market, specialises in plasma systems used to build and define the microscopic circuits on wafers. AMEC's statement did not mention the nationality of the former board members, but its website specifies the nationalities of all corporate governance personnel.
Du was born in 1959 and completed his bachelor's degree at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He then moved to the US where he received his master's degree and doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to being director since 2020, Du previously served as vice-president and chief operating officer since AMEC's founding in 2004.
Huang, born in 1962, studied physics at Sichuan University and then obtained a master's and a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He was appointed company director in September 2021.
The resignations are seen as the latest examples of American personnel stepping back from Chinese chip companies as a result of increasing US restrictions on China's semiconductor industry. A major escalation came in October when, among other measures, Washington issued an order to "limit the ability of US persons to support the development or production" of the Chinese chip industry.
Dozens of US executives and scientists play key roles in Chinese chip firms, including AmLogic, 3Peak, Starpower Semiconductor, ACM Research and Halo Microelectronics. The October order appears to have pushed some in the industry to choose between their citizenship and their jobs.