A reworked version of the "MATCH Act" circulating in the U.S. House of Representatives reduces the scope of an earlier, more expansive bill designed to tighten limits on chipmaking equipment destined for China, while still maintaining a new, nationwide restriction on ASML's deep ultraviolet (DUV) immersion lithography machines, according to the latest draft seen by Reuters.
Introduced on April 2 with bipartisan backing, MATCH - an acronym for "Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware Act" - was written to close perceived gaps in controls on chipmaking technology sold to China and to bring U.S. policy into greater harmony with allied supplier countries, including Japan and the Netherlands. The legislation is framed as a measure to protect a competitive edge in artificial intelligence, described in the bill as a technology that could alter geopolitical power balances.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner, the Republican who sponsored the bill, filed the revised version as a substitute to the original draft. The early-April iteration had alarmed many in the semiconductor industry domestically and abroad, with one expert characterizing it as a "runaway train" that not only sought to compel allied governments to align with U.S. controls, but also would have instituted broad countrywide restrictions and company-specific limitations. Industry representatives warned that such controls would curb exports and damage sales.
Under the updated text, several of the more sweeping measures have been removed. Notably, proposed countrywide curbs on cryogenic etch tools - produced by California-based Lam Research and Japan's Tokyo Electron - are no longer included. Nevertheless, the revised bill still contains targeted prohibitions and compliance requirements.
Specifically, the substitute retains a prohibition on foreign firms selling to Chinese chipmakers CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies), YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies), and SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) for facilities that Washington has designated as barred from employing American tools. The bill also would require licenses to service equipment at covered facilities. While license applications will not be subject to a blanket policy of denial under the revised language, the servicing requirement remains a contested element for foreign suppliers.
The MATCH Act would also set a diplomatic timetable for negotiations with allied supplier countries; if those talks do not reach the desired alignment within the prescribed timeframe, the legislation directs the United States to impose controls. The U.S. has been attempting to coordinate equipment controls with the Netherlands and Japan since it rolled out comprehensive restrictions in late 2022, achieving partial alignment, the draft states, but U.S. equipment manufacturers have urged that the playing field still has uneven elements.
Netherlands-based ASML - the dominant global supplier of the lithography systems central to the debate - declined to comment on the inclusion of a new DUV immersion machine restriction in the bill. The revised MATCH Act nonetheless continues to single out those machines in a countrywide restriction.
Congressional timing is advancing: the House Foreign Affairs Committee is slated to vote on the bill next Wednesday, with the MATCH Act placed alongside more than a dozen measures relating to artificial intelligence, semiconductors and export controls. That committee vote represents one step along the legislative path the bill would need to clear to become law.
Requests for comment sent to the named Chinese chipmakers in the bill drew no responses, and a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said China was monitoring developments and would safeguard its rights and interests. "China opposes the US’s overstretching the national security concept and using all sorts of pretexts to coerce other countries into joining its technological blockade against China," the spokesman, Liu Pengyu, said in a statement.
The initial version of MATCH had provoked intense pushback because it combined ambitious diplomatic objectives - pushing allies to align controls - with prescriptive, company-level and country-level restrictions that many in industry regarded as excessive. The sponsor's substitute proposal pares back several of those elements while retaining specific prohibitions and a mechanism to escalate to unilateral U.S. controls should multilateral alignment not be reached by the deadlines set in the bill.
Even in a narrowed form, the draft continues to address sensitive questions around exportability and servicing of advanced chipmaking equipment, keeping intact provisions that would affect certain Chinese firms and the foreign suppliers that interact with them. The debate over the bill reflects ongoing tensions among national security priorities, industry concerns about export volumes and sales, and diplomatic efforts to coordinate allied trade controls.
Contextual note - The draft aims to align U.S. controls with allied supplier countries and to preserve U.S. leadership in technologies tied to artificial intelligence, while balancing industry objections and diplomatic negotiations with partners in the Netherlands and Japan.