Russia and Ukraine are in a fierce war. Various countries around the world have sanctioned Russia, and many companies have responded. After TSMC announced a ban on exports to Russia in compliance with U.S. trade agreements, Taiwan's IC design leader MediaTek and U.S. Qualcomm followed suit and banned exports of chips to Russia.

MediaTek sent a letter to its customers and partners on March 3, announcing a ban on the export of devices containing its chips to Russia. MediaTek said that the company has always complied with all applicable legal norms and new export control regulations.

The industry pointed out that mainland Chinese cell phone brands such as OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi, which use MediaTek and Qualcomm chips, will not be able to export to Russia, and Apple has previously announced a ban on exporting its products to Russia, making Apple and the non-Apple camp almost all join the ranks of sanctions against Russia.

According to market statistics, Xiaomi has the highest market share of 31.2% in the Russian cell phone market, followed by Samsung with 29.8%, Apple with 14.5%, OPPO sub-brand realme with 4.6%, and Xiaomi sub-brand POCO with 3.8%.

Market Share of Mobile Phones in Russia

It is understood that Intel, AMD, Bosch, NXP, and other companies have previously offered the same sanction action. In addition, other chip makers such as Samsung and SK Hynix, which rely on U.S. technology and equipment, will also comply with the U.S. ban and cannot continue to supply chips to Russia.

Of note is that the U.S. Washington specifically named SMIC to join the sanctions. SMIC continues to use chip manufacturing equipment from U.S. suppliers, including Applied Materials, even after it was blacklisted by the U.S. in 2020. The company could face tighter restrictions if it fails to comply with U.S. sanctions, which could make it more difficult or impossible to obtain licenses for repair parts and new equipment.

Any products made with certain U.S. inputs are subject to the ban, including U.S. software and designs, even if they are made overseas, a U.S. official said. Companies that try to circumvent these new controls will face the prospect of isolating themselves from U.S.-origin technology, and corporate executives could go to jail for violations.

On March 3, Taiwan Economic Daily reported that the semiconductor wafer fab global crystal recently rumored that the Japanese plant suffered a network attack and shutdown. Global Crystal confirmed that it did suffer a network attack on February 28, and stressed that it has been checking the production line system and terminal equipment, to determine the safety of the re-opening, the company's overall operations are not affected.

GlobalWafers.Co., Ltd is a Taiwan company principally engaged in the design, research, 

development, manufacture, and sales of semiconductor rods and wafers.

Japan is a major production center of Universal Crystal, but there are several scattered factories. Universal Crystal said that the current situation is that the company's internal IT staff and external professionals have been processed simultaneously, and many processes for silicon wafer production can be performed offline. So it has little impact on the company's overall production.

In addition, Universal Crystal also mentioned that the company's system has an automatic backup function, so all data can be restored smoothly. Universal Crystal emphasized that the current systems are being resumed one after another, and confidential information is not affected. The gradual resumption of production will continue to implement the Group's information security infrastructure, comprehensively upgrade network protection levels and ensure data security.

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