By Stephen Nellis and Karen Freifeld
(Reuters) -The U.S.-based Semiconductor Industry Association trade group on Monday called on the Biden administration to "refrain from further restrictions" on chip sales to China as chief executives from the biggest U.S. semiconductor firms planned to visit Washington this week to press their views on China policy.
The statement came as the Biden administration considers updating a sweeping set of rules imposed in October to hobble China's chip industry and a new executive order restricting some outbound investment. Reuters reported last week that the chief executives of Intel Corp and Qualcomm Inc planned to meet with government officials to discuss their views on China policy.
The statement also comes after China moved to restrict exports of raw materials such as gallium and germanium that are used in making chips. The industry group said that further rule-tightening by U.S. officials risks "disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty, and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China."
The industry group said it wants "the administration to refrain from further restrictions until it engages more extensively with industry and experts to assess the impact of current and potential restrictions to determine whether they are narrow and clearly defined, consistently applied, and fully coordinated with allies.”
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Karen Freifeld in New York, Editing by Nick Zieminski)
