CFIUS Should Revisit Intel-SK Hynix Merger Given China’s ‘3rd Party’ Remedy(CFIUS应重新审视英特尔与SK海力士的合并，因为中国采取了"第三方"补救措施)

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China’s antitrust regulator recently approved the divestiture of Intel Corp’s NAND flash memory arm to South Korea’s SK Hynix. Conditioning its approval for the $9 billion transaction are half a dozen remedies, including a promise from both parties to “help a third-party competitor enter the PCIe enterprise-class solid-state drive and SATA enterprise-class solid-state drive market to strengthen competition in the domestic market.” Details were redacted in the corporate statement. While such conditions are not unheard of, DigiTimesAsia suggests the beneficiary may be Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC), a known Chinese military fab. This development should give US national security leaders pause.

Semiconductor production has many vulnerabilities including sensitivity to supply chain disruption, the ability to compromise chips with kill switches and remote access capability, and geopolitical concerns about limited and unfavorable fab locations. Economist and semiconductor policy expert Jeff Ferry of the Coalition for a Prosperous America observes, “You cannot build any technology product without memory chips. The US is dependent on chips made in China. The chips get built into servers and other devices in China and then those devices end up in data centers in the US and everywhere.”

Competition in China: A Contradiction in Terms

The assumptions of market competition include many buyers, many sellers, similar goods, perfect information, and minimal government intervention. Understandably competition in the semiconductor manufacturing market is imperfect; firms compete in technology and bundling, not just price. Governments employ industrial policy for semiconductors to protect and promote what are considered critical technologies. Moreover, nations apply national security review mechanisms when firms from different countries attempt to divest or acquire strategic assets, as the Committee for Foreign Investment (CFIUS) in the United States performed on the Intel-SK Hynix deal.

中国反垄断监管机构最近批准将英特尔公司的NAND闪存部门剥离给韩国的SK海力士。限制其批准90亿美元的交易是六种补救措施，包括双方承诺"帮助第三方竞争对手进入PCIe企业级固态硬盘和SATA企业级固态硬盘市场，以加强国内市场的竞争。细节在公司声明中进行了编辑。虽然这样的情况并非闻所未闻，但DigiTimesAsia表示，受益者可能是中国知名的军事晶圆厂长江存储技术公司（YMTC）。这一事态发展应该让美国国家安全领导人停下来。

半导体生产存在许多漏洞，包括对供应链中断的敏感性，通过终止开关和远程访问功能破坏芯片的能力，以及对有限和不利的晶圆厂位置的地缘政治担忧。繁荣美国联盟（Coalition for a Prosperous America）的经济学家和半导体政策专家杰夫·费里（Jeff Ferry）观察到，"没有存储芯片，你就无法制造任何技术产品。美国依赖中国制造的芯片。这些芯片被内置到中国的服务器和其他设备中，然后这些设备最终进入美国和世界各地的数据中心。

中国的竞争：术语的矛盾

市场竞争的假设包括许多买家，许多卖家，类似的商品，完美的信息和最小的政府干预。可以理解的是，半导体制造市场的竞争并不完美。公司在技术和捆绑方面竞争，而不仅仅是价格。政府采用半导体产业政策来保护和促进被认为是关键技术的技术。此外，当来自不同国家的公司试图剥离或收购战略资产时，各国会采用国家安全审查机制，就像美国的外国投资委员会（CFIUS）在英特尔-SK海力士的交易中所做的那样。

"交易完成后，SATA企业固态硬盘市场的主要竞争对手将从4个减少到3个"，中国国家市场监督管理总局（SAMR）关于该交易的声明的非官方翻译指出。SAMR的其他条件包括禁止定价和帮助被认为是YMTC的未命名的第三方/方竞争对手，尽管昭易创新和长鑫存储也可能是候选者。

SemiAnalysis的首席分析师Dylan Patel拒绝了SAMR对市场的描述。"考虑到有更多的球员，这几乎没有意义......NAND是一个竞争激烈的市场，没有共谋。实际上，SAMR正试图为YMTC打开渗透市场的大门。Patel预测，YMTC将在2022年引发NAND世界末日，用廉价的芯片淹没市场。