These regulations heavily restrict physical exports of certain semiconductors and integrated circuits, as well as technical information related to the development of such semiconductors and circuits, to entities in these countries. The export restrictions include deemed exports; that is, transfer of information related to certain semiconductors and integrated circuits to nationals of these countries.
Division of Research
Semiconductor Export Regulations
What Are ‘Advanced’ Semiconductors?
BIS has defined “advanced” semiconductors as follows:
Integrated circuits that have or are programmable to have aggregate bidirectional transfer rate over all inputs and outputs of 600 Gbyte/s or more to or from integrated circuits other than volatile memories, and any of the following:
- One or more digital processor units executing machine instructions having a bit length per operation multiplied by processing performance measured in TOPS, aggregated over all processor units, of 4800 or more;
- One or more digital 'primitive computational units,' excluding those units contributing to the execution of machine instructions relevant to the calculation of operation multiplied by processing performance measured in TOPS, aggregated over all computational units, of 4800 or more;
- One or more analog, multi-value, or multi-level 'primitive computational units' having a processing performance measured in TOPS multiplied by 8, aggregated over all computational units, of 4800 or more; or
- Any combination of digital processor units and 'primitive computational units' whose calculations according to the above three descriptions sum to 4800 or more.
Transfer of Information
In addition, the new regulations prohibit the transfer of information related to semiconductors to facilities, entities or collaborators that may be supporting military end uses of integrated circuits and semiconductors. To ensure compliance with the regulations, Brown researchers may need end-use certification from the collaborating entity or collaborator.
Next Steps
If your research uses or develops semiconductors that could meet the “advanced” semiconductor criteria listed above, and you have or are planning collaborations with individuals, entities, or facilities in a country listed in Country Group D:5, you must contact Export Control (exportcontrol@brown.edu) to determine if any additional action, such as a license application or end-use certification, is required for your collaborative activities.