China’s top chip equipment maker sees two US executives step aside amid tech war tensions

Two executives with US citizenship at Chinese chip gear maker Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) have stepped down from their positions, as trade tensions between the US and China continue to escalate.

Ni Tuqiang and Yang Wei, both US citizens, are no longer “core technical personnel” at AMEC, which is widely seen as China’s best hope to produce advanced etching and deposition tools to cut reliance on foreign suppliers, for “personal reasons”, but the two remain employees of the company, Shanghai-listed AMEC said in a regulatory filing last week.

The number of AMEC’s “core technical personnel”, which also include chairman and CEO Gerald Yin Zhiyao, has decreased from nine to seven with the latest executive moves, the company said.

The changes “will not have a significant adverse impact” on AMEC’s research and development progress, operational capabilities or its competitiveness, the company said.

AMEC did not specify what new positions the two executives would take on. Ni also stepped down as a vice-president of the company, AMEC said.